


Silvertongue

by lyonet



Series: Silvertongue [1]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Past Suicidal Thoughts, InkHeart AU, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2018-11-21 11:17:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 48,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11356401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyonet/pseuds/lyonet
Summary: Reading a forbidden book to his little sister was not supposed to end this way: with the villain and the hero ofSilvertongueemerging from its pages to upend Credence's life. Now he has to figure out how to put them back - and get his sisters out - before the monster of the storybook world gets its teeth into his.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I rewatched _Fantastic Beasts_ this week and have renewed feelings on the subject. This AU is loosely based on Cornelia Funke's glorious _Inkheart_ trilogy.

Of Credence’s three crappy summer jobs, the best by far was the one he didn’t get paid for. It was community service, or at least that was how he had sold it to his mother: three afternoons a week sweeping floors and cleaning windows at the library, and in return he was allowed to leave a bundle of church pamphlets on the front table beside the local newspapers and community college flyers.

“I can spread the word, Ma,” he had said hopefully, when he’d broached the idea with her at the start of the summer. It had been a calculated risk. Mary-Lou Barebone approved of hard work, but she liked it better when that work benefited the church directly. Last summer it had been twelve-hour days in the soup kitchen. The summer before, Credence had trudged around town pushing pamphlets into letter boxes and getting sunburn on the back of his neck. Never mind that the congregation had been dwindling for years; never mind that her fire-and-brimstone sermons were becoming something of a joke in the town. There was always work to do.

But this time, there were a few factors in Credence’s favour. With the big annual fundraiser coming up, Mary-Lou had two priorities: guilting as many sponsors as possible into donating to the church, and keeping her youngest child under _someone’s_ eye, as her own were much too busy. Nine-year-old Modesty wasn’t like Credence and Chastity had been at that age, obediently occupied with the endless tasks that small hands could get done. She was what Mary-Lou called ‘intractable’, which meant that even when she wasn’t arguing with you, you could always tell that she wanted to.

Chastity, who had been expected to watch both her siblings when they were younger, was needed at the church to handle the phones. Credence would have been roped into the same task if his voice had been better suited for talking people into things; as it was, his tendency to trip over his tongue when talking to strangers had disqualified him automatically. He’d arranged the timing carefully; Modesty would come with him to the library, where she could keep herself entertained easily enough, and Chastity would pick her up on the way home from church at six so that Credence could get to his night shift at the supermarket across the street. That was the better part of three days a week that neither Credence or Modesty had to spend at home.

“I’m going to read _everything_ ,” Modesty announced solemnly, on the first afternoon. She looked around at the stacks, small hands on her hips, a determined frown taking over her face. She was half Credence’s size and at least twice as intimidating when she looked like that.

“Don’t tell Ma,” he pleaded. “Tell her you’re studying, okay? Have you got your math textbook?”

Modesty rolled her eyes. “Of course.”

Credence left her sitting on the floor in the Junior Fiction, her back against the shelves, reading something with dragons on the front cover that would definitely be put through the shredder if it was seen anywhere at home. Armed with Windex and a packet of scrubbing cloths, he got to work earning their keep. Cleaning was one of the few things he was actually good at. He got in plenty of practice at the church.

He checked in on Modesty a few times through the afternoon, bringing her an illicit juice box at three, but she was too busy inhaling the complete works of Roald Dahl to pay him any attention. The librarian didn’t seem to care all that much either, so Credence allowed himself the occasional five minute break in the reference section (which was right at the back of the library and nearly always deserted). There was an actual lectern in the corner, dating back fifteen years to before the library had been rehoused into a much smaller building. The atlas it supported was much older, an enormous stately volume that was rarely opened any more. Credence turned the gilt-edged pages reverently, sounding out the names of cities under his breath. He’d had a plan once to go to college interstate, but in the end he’d barely scraped through high school. At twenty, his life was headed along the same nowhere track it had always been, and it was all his own fault.

Chastity was exactly where she wanted to be. She had taken over the church finances straight out of school, she’d always had a head for numbers. Now that Mary-Lou was trying to expand into social media, Chastity was handling most of that too. And Modesty, she was  _bright –_ Credence was already looking into scholarships for her, so that when the time came, she’d have a ticket out of this town already lined up.

He closed the atlas and got back to work. 

When Chastity came to collect her, Modesty was bent over her math book and Credence was applying his best elbow grease to the display cabinets. “She’s behaved herself?” Chastity asked, but it was perfunctory; she was tired, with print from the church pamphlets smudged on her fingers. Credence wondered if she ever daydreamed about dropping the phone, walking out, taking the first bus to anywhere. If sometimes she listened to their mother preach and thought,  _but that makes no sense._ If she did, it never showed.

By the end of the first week, Modesty had worked her way along the Junior Fiction shelves from A to T and Mildred at the circulation desk had more or less adopted her. Where Credence was usually too nervous to start conversations, aware that he had nothing interesting to say, Modesty plunged straight in with a nine-year-old’s bull-headedness. She wanted to know what Mildred liked to read (romance novels about billionaires, mostly), and how the library decided what books to buy, and how the Dewey Decimal System worked. 

“Why are you stamping those books?” she asked, standing on tip-toe to see over the desk. “I thought you weren’t supposed to write in library books.”

“These are discards.” Mildred held up an example. The book was a paperback with a knight on the front cover and some sort of beast encircling him, its scales vivid blue, close enough to a dragon to catch Modesty’s attention. “This was donated to the library a few years ago, but it’s in pretty bad shape, you see? So we have to get rid of it.”

“You’re throwing a book _away_?”

Mildred laughed. “Even we have to do that eventually, kid.”

“Hey, I’ll throw it away for you, if you want,” Modesty said in her most helpful voice, and Mildred fell for it, as people usually did. Credence, though, recognised his sister’s plotting face when he saw it, and caught her stuffing the book into her backpack.

“You know you can’t bring that home,” he whispered. He understood the temptation – it was frustrating for her, having to read everything in bits at the library when other people could check out the books any time and Modesty would have to wait weeks to get them back – but Ma would find out, Ma _always_ found out. No books were allowed in the house until Mary-Lou had approved them first, and Credence could tell at a glance this was not a book she was going to approve. 

“I want it,” Modesty hissed. “Nobody else wants it! Why can’t it be mine?”

Credence hated saying no to her. He was supposed to be on her side – someone had to be – and Modesty would hold onto the grudge for weeks if he made her leave the book behind. He pulled it out of her bag.  _Silvertongue_ , said the title in big curling letters. The knight wore a black cloak and an impatient expression, like he was waiting for Credence to make up his mind as much as Modesty was. The blue beast wasn’t a dragon; it looked more like a serpentine sort of a bird. Credence ran a thumb along the spine. It was a thick book – a bit warped with water damage, like someone had left it in the rain, but holding together well just the same. He opened it to chapter one.

_The courtiers of Macusa were in uproar. Rumours had reached them of a dark presence spreading westward, through the towns and villages along the border of the kingdom, and everyone had something to say. Of all the court, only Queen Seraphina and her champion, Sir Percival, were silent, for each had already decided upon what needed to be done…_

“Okay,” Credence said. He held the book up, measuring it by eye. “Can you talk Mildred into letting us use the photocopier for free?”

It wasn’t a great plan. Modesty’s math textbook was larger and the photocopied front cover didn’t fit around quite right, but with a lot of sticky tape, it held. The subterfuge put Modesty in a rare, gleeful mood. She swung on Credence’s hand like she had when she was small.

“Will you read it to me?” she asked.

“You read so much faster than I do,” Credence said, surprised. He had not read to Modesty in years.

“You’re better at doing voices,” she said. “You used to read me bedtime stories.” 

So he had, until Mary-Lou had rearranged the chore schedule and there wasn’t time for that in the evening any more. Credence was struck by a sudden, forceful pang of guilt. “I’ll read it if you want,” he said quickly, “but we have to be really careful. Promise?”

Modesty smiled. She didn’t do that enough. “Promise!”

*

It didn’t take Credence long to fall in love with the book, even harder than Modesty. This was their new schedule: they left for the library an hour earlier, so that Credence could finish at five. Then they’d go to sit in the closed stairwell that led down into the parking garage. Mary-Lou and Chastity only ever came through the front doors, never from the side, so it was a pretty safe spot for their tiny secret book club. Modesty liked to sit on the step below Credence, so that she could rest her head on his knees, and she’d close her eyes while he read to her from  _Silvertongue._

It was set in the kingdom of Macusa, which was the most wonderful place Credence could never have imagined. Everyone had magic there. They used it for everything, from travelling on flying broomsticks to washing the dishes with the flip of a wand.  Strange beasts roamed the land, like the tricksy little Niffler and the fierce Occamy, lovingly described in so much detail that Modesty got impatient and demanded Credence skip back to the story. She liked the battles best. 

There were a lot of battles. The hero, Albus, had been tasked by Queen Seraphina to seek out a mysterious monster that was terrorising the land. It was a shape-changer, almost impossible to find, but there were plenty of other villainous characters to keep him occupied in the meantime – bandits, mercenaries, double-crossing courtiers – and he spent so much time sorrowfully reminiscing about his dearest friend who had Gone To The Bad that Credence was sure that the friend would show up at some point for a dramatic fight. 

Queen Seraphina, who was  beautiful and clever  and a bit manipulative, was Modesty’s favourite character. Credence’s was the Champion of the Realm, Sir Percival, who had gone to fight the monster in chapter two and promptly vanished without a trace. He had just reappeared, at the beginning of chapter seven, but Credence had a dreadful feeling that the man who returned from the forest was not really Sir Percival at all. He kept doing strange, cruel things. None of the other characters seemed to have noticed his strange behaviour at all and it was driving Credence mad.

“The monster killed him and now it’s going to try to kill the queen,” Modesty predicted darkly.

“No. He has to be alive,” Credence argued. “He’s going to come back and fight it, and prove to everyone that they were wrong.”

“Albus is the hero. That means he fights the monster,” Modesty explained. “He might save the queen, and then they’ll get married, and he won’t be sad about that friend who left him any more. Percival’s not very important to the story.”

“He’s important!” Credence was embarrassed by how indignant he felt, but couldn’t help himself. “He knew he was probably going to fail, but he tried. People were being hurt, so he tried to do something about it. He’s brave.”

“Maybe we find out where he is in the next chapter,” Modesty said cunningly.

Credence sighed. “We don’t have time, it’s nearly six. Chastity will be here soon.”

“Ten more minutes? Please?”

“Five minutes,” Credence said, inevitably giving in. And she was right. The next chapter opened with Percival, the real Percival, alone in the forest.

_ He had lost count of the days here, in this dark place of endless trees. Percival had taken to marking his way on the trunks he passed, but a strange fancy had crept upon him, that the bark smoothed out as soon as he turned his back, to better keep him prisoner… _

The long shadows of late afternoon began to spill down the stairs. Credence needed to stop reading, he would stop reading any minute now.

… _And a new dread was growing in his belly, a twisting, thorned thought: he was not alone. Percival’s hand lingered upon the hilt of his sword as he stood in the fading sunlight. Had he truly heard the sound of footsteps? Was it not more likely to be a beast retreating to its burrow for the night, cracking twigs beneath heavy paws? There had been no sign of human life in the forest in all this time: no smoke from a fire, no path pushed through the undergrowth. And yet. Percival turned a slow circle, his boots stirring the thick carpet of dried leaves. He had come to the forest hunting a monster…what, he thought, if the monster was now hunting him?_

“Ohhh,” Modesty breathed. Credence barely heard her. He had to know what happened next.

_ His first thought, when he saw it, was dreamlike, illogical: there was a mirror between the trees, reflecting his own face back at him as he had last seen it. But Percival had not shaved his face in many days, there were leaves in his hair and dirt on his clothes, while this vision was pristine in its elegance. The stillness was absolute. Then the man stepped forward, shedding Percival’s face as a snake sheds its skin, or a courtier drops a mask. He was older, his hair bleached white, eyes wicked with amusement. “Well, sir knight, here I am,” he said. “Are you going to fight me?” _

“ _What are you?” Percival breathed, his sword half-drawn. His limbs would not quite obey him; as if this man had in some way laid claim on them for himself._

“ _Why, don’t you know?” The white-haired man spread his hands. “I am the monster you seek. I am the Faceless, the Nameless. I am Everyone. I am No One. I am you, Sir Percival, if I want to be. I go where I will, and when I am done_ ,

“Credence!”

_ you will all speak my name as a god.” _

“Credence,” Chastity said, and he blinked, looking up. 

They had been caught. Credence had ruined everything, though the thought of that did not immediately sink in. He saw Chastity with an unusual clarity, standing framed in the fading sunlight at the top of the stairs: her confusion turning to anger, because he’d been  _ stupid _ , and now she had to do something about it, and what was worse, she had to tell on Modesty too… 

Credence blinked again, and she wasn’t there.

The air was thick, shimmering, as if everything – the cement of the stairwell walls, the cracked tile steps, the library itself – might all dissolve at a touch.  The slight, warm weight of Modesty’s head against Credence’s legs was gone;  _ she _ was gone. Where his sisters had been stood two men: one armoured and unshaven, kneeling on the step where Modesty had been, while the other was white-haired and wicked-eyed, standing above them both.

“Hm,” said the white-haired man. “This is interesting.”

The book dropped out of Credence’s nerveless hands. The knight at his side made a raw sound, scraping a hand across his eyes in disbelief. “What have you done, monster?”

The white-haired man turned in a controlled circle, studying his surroundings with one finger raised, as if to test the direction of the wind. “Do you know,” he said, “I cannot  _ wait _ to find out.” Then he was gone too, a whisper blown away by the breeze.

Credence looked up to find a sword levelled at his throat. Dark eyes stared down at him, wild and furious. “Who the  _ fuck _ are you?” demanded Sir Percival of House Graves. “And where the hell is this?”

Credence had never once in his life claimed to be good in a crisis. Fear froze him in place, left him speechless and staring. It held him obediently still when his mother reached for the belt, kept him sitting quietly in a pew while the venom of her sermon crashed down over his head – it had held him in this town all along, an inertia that he was unable to break, and it held him now, trembling beneath the sharp edge of a very real sword.

“ _Answer me_ ,” Percival barked.

“Library,” Credence gabbled. “Silvertongue. I’m so sorry.”

Percival lowered his sword, just a fraction. “Try again,” he said, “and this time make sense.”

“You were in the book,” Credence whispered. “You were in the book, and now you’re not. I don’t know what’s happening. Please, I’m sorry, I don’t know. If you’re going to kill me, can I find my sisters first?”

Percival let the sword fall to his side, frowning down at Credence. “What’s your name?”

“C-Credence.”

“And your sisters?”

“Modesty. And Chastity. They were here – they must have run away…”

Credence did not quite believe that, even as he said it. His sisters had been there, and then they weren’t, in the same absolute way that two men from a story had simply appeared from nowhere. He realised belatedly that he was shaking so hard his teeth were clicking together. This made it difficult to stand up, though that was obviously what he had to do. Whatever had happened, it was his fault. But he could not make his feet take his weight.

A large hand gripped him firmly by the elbow and pulled him upright. The shock of _touch_ – evidence that not only was Percival real, Credence was too, everything about this was _real_ – left him speechless again, staring helplessly. Percival was approximately two inches shorter than Credence was. He had dark eyes beneath straight dark brows, a week’s worth of beard growth to match his uncombed hair, and there was a panther engraved on his breastplate. He was wearing a breastplate. Because he was a knight from a storybook. Credence swayed on the spot.

“Kindly don’t faint,” Percival said. “I need you to help me kill the monster.”

Credence fainted.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Credence came to on dry grass, to the rustling sound of pages being turned very fast. He turned his head and saw Sir Percival sitting beside him, skimming through _Silvertongue_ with an expression so incredulous it seemed likely his eyebrows were going to give up and become one with his hairline. 

They were in the park behind the library. It was actually less of a park than a patchy square of grass that half the town council wanted to cement over and turn into a parking lot , but apparently Percival had decided it was a better location to consider his situation than a dingy stairwell. He must have carried Credence along with him. That implied a level of physical strength and a commitment to getting answers that Credence was not comfortable with, because he had absolutely no answers to give.

Percival smacked the book shut. “So. You’re a seer.”

“What,” Credence said, jerking upright. “No! I’m not magic, _you’re_ magic – ”

Percival tossed the book into his lap. “How is it, then, that you have a chronicle detailing the happenings in my kingdom, word for word?”

“It’s not mine! I-it was at the library, I was just reading it…”

“What were you trying to do, then?” Percival demanded impatiently. “Was it a summoning spell gone wrong? What manner of library is this that you have, where such books can be found?”

“I wasn’t trying to do anything. I’m sorry, I was reading to my sister and – she was gone, and you were there, and I don’t know _how…_ ”

Without warning, Percival caught his chin and tipped it up so that Credence was forced to meet his eyes. The grip was not quite tight enough to be painful, but movement was not an option. Percival studied his face intently, searching for something there. From the bemused frown and the way his fingers relaxed, he did not find it.

“What is this place?” he asked, his tone slightly less fierce.

Credence told him, starting with the name of the street, moving on to the name of the town, then the state. “The United States of America,” he continued, a little frantically. “The planet Earth?”

“Another world, then,” Percival concluded. “That makes sense, at least. The monster must have opened a portal to escape justice. We shall have to seek it out. But my greater concern for now is this book. If you did not write it, then who did?”

Credence’s hands were trembling again. At least he could pick up the book without fumbling too badly. “Um, it says, Newton Scamander,” he said, and thumbed hastily to look for an author bio at the back. It was very short. “It says, Mr Scamander is a zoologist. He used to live in England, that is, um, very far away, but now he lives…”

Percival grabbed the book off him and read the page for himself. “Thunderhill. Is that near here?”

“Not really,” Credence said. “Sorry.”

“We will get all of this done much faster if you stop apologising,” Percival said, without any particular bite. Credence winced just the same. “I am not going to hurt you, Credence. Unless you are working with the monster, and I do not believe you are. I will need your assistance, however. From my observation of the street during your recovery, the mode of transportation in this world varies greatly from my own, and I don’t have the time to learn its intricacies.”

“You – want to know if I can drive?” Credence cleared his throat. “I can, but…”

“Good,” Percival said. “First, we shall consult with the seer. A more specific address would have been preferable, but I suppose a sorcerer of his power would not wish for a horde of customers constantly at his door. I expect we will find him soon enough once we arrive in the area. He may be able to help us locate the monster, or at least explain my arrival.”

“What about my sisters?” Credence twisted his hands. “Modesty’s only nine. She was wearing blue. Have you seen her?”

Percival shook his head. “Would she have gone to fetch help?”

There was no help to get. Modesty knew that. She might have gone home, though – if Chastity had found her, she would not have had much choice in the matter. Credence thought of Mary-Lou coming home, hearing what had happened…she rarely used the belt on Modesty, but she would for this.

“I need to go home,” Credence said, scrambling to his feet. “You…could wait here…”

Percival gave him a tolerant look. He appeared to have decided that Credence was a harmless idiot, which was at least better than an evil sorcerer. “I will accompany you.”

There was no time to argue. Mary-Lou usually arrived home between six thirty and seven. She would be home much sooner if Chastity was scared enough to call her. If Chastity was there. If…she  _had_ to be there. Credence walked faster. He was aware of Percival walking a step behind, in his armour and cloak and tall black boots, impossible to explain in all ways, but Credence could only be frantic about one thing at a time just now. When he turned onto his street, he broke into a run.

There were no lights on inside the house. No one answered when Credence called out. He ran upstairs to the bedrooms, but he wasn’t really surprised to find them empty. He stopped in the doorway of Modesty’s room, looking around hopelessly at the neatly made bed, the bunny slippers side by side next to the closet.

He heard the stairs creak as Percival came up behind him. “They’re in your world,” Credence croaked, “aren’t they.”

“Without knowing what spell summoned me here, I can’t say,” Percival said, “but it’s a possibility. We need to speak to the seer.”

Credence had never driven the family car without Mary-Lou in the passenger seat, watching his every move. She expected them all to walk around town, and led by example. The car sat in the garage most of the time, the keys kept in a kitchen drawer with assorted household miscellany. If Credence took them, there was no going back. But there had been no going back for a while now – it had just taken Credence this long to admit it.

He took a shaky breath. “Do you want a shower before we go?”

Percival took one look at the fixtures in the bathroom and dismissed Credence’s attempt to explain how they worked. “I am accustomed to more civilised plumbing than this, but it will do perfectly well,” he said coolly, and closed the door. Credence went to find clothes for him. Standing in his own bedroom, it struck him that he probably wouldn’t see it again any time soon, maybe not ever. He dragged his old school backpack out from under the bed and stuffed a few changes of clothes into it. Then he sat on the bed and hyperventilated for a bit.

Credence managed to pull himself back together when he heard the bathroom door open. Percival appeared in his doorway, wearing a white shirt that strained across his wider shoulders and a pair of black slacks that could just about accommodate his more muscular thighs. He had taken the opportunity to shave. Credence became aware that he had been staring speechlessly for an inexplicably long time when Percival asked, patiently, “Are you ready to leave?”

Credence swallowed. Anyone would stare, under the circumstances. He didn’t have to think about why. “Yes,” he said.

The car started easily, which was at least one bit of luck. Percival jerked in surprise at the rumble of the engine and muttered something disapproving about man-eating metal beetles – hopefully that was a metaphor – but otherwise remained quiet. As Credence backed out onto the street, he wondered which neighbour would be the first to report on him. Mary-Lou’s friends were their own little Neighbourhood Watch; Credence had always felt watched, here.

As it was, there was no need. She saw him herself, turning the corner of the street. Credence, who had been worrying over whether he was in the right gear, saw her first, and caught her look of astonishment as she realised it was her own car passing by. He gasped under his breath, “Shit,” which did not begin to cover it. There was something entirely different in the theoretical knowledge that he had burned his bridges and the abrupt reality of it: she had seen his face.

“Who was that?” Percival asked, sharply.

“My mother.”

Percival frowned. “We can stop, if you wish – ”

“I don’t wish,” Credence said, fervently. “We have to get out of town.”

He could feel Percival looking at him and braced himself for argument, but after a minute Percival merely nodded, and was quiet again.

The furthest Credence had ever been outside the town was a school trip to the nearest city, where they’d visited the aquarium. He had been ten; it was the last school trip Mary-Lou had been willing to pay for. Credence knew that, originally, he came from somewhere else – Mary-Lou had already adopted her two eldest when she arrived in the town eighteen years ago – but he could remember nothing beyond these dusty, well-trodden streets, the faded store-fronts and rows of cookie-cutter brick houses. Everything else of the world existed in two dimensions, on maps or in books.

Thunderhill was at least three days of driving away, and Credence only knew that because it was a tourist destination for the few people in town who went away anywhere. There were lakes, and some sort of nature reserve. It was where kids would go camping, families would go canoeing, and apparently, where authors with potential mystical powers resided in obscurity.

Credence drove. He wanted to get as far away as possible while Mary-Lou was still trying to work out what had happened. There was a strong chance she would call the police; even more likely, she would call on her most loyal parishioners to go forth and seek the lost lamb. Credence swallowed down the sour dread in his mouth. If he’d intended to run away, he wouldn’t have done it like this. He would have gone during the day, while his mother was at the church – by the time she got home, he’d be long gone, vanishing into…

Homelessness, probably. Credence had fantasised about running away many times, but had never worked up the nerve to do it. Mary-Lou’s first assumption, having seen him go, would have to be a sudden emergency, what with Modesty and Chastity absent as well, and she’d be right, only it was not the kind of emergency that could be explained by a phone call to the nearest hospital. Credence topped up the fuel tank at the first service station he passed and bought a few provisions for the road while he was there. It wasn’t like Percival would be able to contribute financially to this trip, and Credence was already pitifully short on funds, so better to get bottled water and crackers while he could still just about afford it.

Percival’s silence continued as they drove on. He was entirely occupied with a more thorough reading of  _Silvertongue._ He had stowed his armour in the back seat; his scabbard was in the passenger side footwell, propped against his leg, and his left thumb rubbed absent-minded circles on the pommel of the sword as he read. Credence opened his mouth a couple of times, became aware of the inanity of his own questions before they emerged, and focused on driving. 

At last Percival made a sharp noise, clapped the book shut with savage force and said, “I  _see_ .”

“You see?” Credence echoed, worriedly.

“How far did you get through this volume before the accident occurred?”

“Um. Chapter eight. You were in the forest…”

“Confronting the monster? Yes. That is the last moment that I can recall in my own world before being summoned into yours.” Percival was quiet for some time before continuing. “It truly means nothing to you, then. This was a story, and you only its reader.”

“Yes,” Credence whispered. “I’m sorry.”

Percival sighed. “On the contrary, you owe me no apology. You have shown great kindness, Credence.”

“In the book…” Credence swallowed. “Does it mention two girls? One would be my age, she’d – she wouldn’t like anything very much, I think, but Modesty, she would love magic…”

“They do not appear,” Percival said gently. “But I do, beyond that chapter. The book is not a bellwether for what is happening to us all now. The seer may know more.”

Credence took one hand off the steering wheel long enough to wipe his wet eyes. “Okay.”

Percival looked out the window, though it was too dark to see beyond the blur of bitumen and road signs. Credence stared ahead. He wondered what Percival had found in the book that made him so angry, but didn’t ask.

It was nearly eleven when they reached the outskirts of the city and Credence realised, squinting at neon signs through gritty eyes, that he was too tired to drive any further. He saw a train station up ahead and pulled over into its parking lot, almost deserted at this hour. They would need to ditch the car soon anyway. Maybe they could get trains for the rest of the way – Credence would need to find out how much it all cost. Almost certainly more than he had.

“I have to sleep for a few hours,” Credence told Percival apologetically. “Then I’ll. Um. Figure something out. If you’re tired, the seats go back, like this? So. You can sleep too. If you want.” He trailed off awkwardly and tried to settle himself on the reclined driver’s seat, which squeaked loudly in protest. Percival looked mildly amused and did not adjust his own seat.

Credence closed his eyes. Despite his exhaustion, it took a long time for sleep to come; the sound of the traffic, the whistle of trains arriving and departing, kept jolting him awake. Then Percival murmured something in a language Credence didn’t know, and it was as if a bubble of silence had descended around the car. Credence thought  _magic,_ and slept.

*

When he woke up, Percival was gone and so was his wallet.

Credence tried to sit up. The seat gave an ominous crack and then abruptly snapped upright, hurling Credence face-first into the steering wheel. He yelped, pressing a hand to his throbbing cheek, and in groping around for the seat control he accidentally got hold of the door handle instead. Credence tumbled out of the car in a graceless heap.

He looked up and saw Percival strolling calmly across the parking lot towards him.

“Are you all right?” Percival asked, as he drew closer. He looked as fresh as if he’d slept for eight hours instead of sneaking off first thing in the morning.

“Where did you go?” Credence demanded, scrambling to his feet. It had not occurred to him before that Percival could simply ditch him and find an alternative, faster form of travel to get to Thunderhill, but now it _had_ occurred to him, it was shockingly obvious. Percival had magic, he had a sword. He didn’t seem to be overwrought by anything in this brand new world he’d fallen into – given a little thought, he could no doubt make his own way if he really wanted to. Which made it all the more startling that Percival had chosen to come back.

“I went to procure information,” Percival said, raising his eyebrows at Credence’s panicky tone. He held up a newspaper. “There is a shape-shifting monster abroad in your land, you know.”

“Oh.” Credence sank onto the car seat. “What does the paper say?”

“Nothing of consequence to the task at hand. If the monster is killing, it is doing so with discretion.” Percival shook his head. “There’s nothing to be done about that at present. We must travel with all speed. As my armour seems likely to draw attention in your world, I also thought it advisable to obtain suitable storage.”

He gestured towards a strap on his shoulder that Credence realised, on closer examination, belonged to a rucksack. “How did you  _pay_ for that?” Credence asked, feeling panicky all over again.

“Be calm,” Percival instructed. “It is quite a simple replication spell, as your currency has no precautionary bewitchments. Usually I would not stoop to such deceit, but the our need is urgent.” He took Credence’s wallet from his pocket and handed it over. The number of bills inside had tripled, and that was without whatever the rucksack and newspaper had cost.

Credence laughed. He had barrelled way past his shock threshold and into a giddy, floating feeling. “Magic,” he said.

“Exactly,” Percival said, like Credence was finally getting it.

*

Credence left the car unlocked, keys in the ignition. He consulted the schedules at the train station and decided on a route, using Percival’s counterfeit to buy tickets and two cans of soda while he was at it. Percival, it turned out, did not like Coke. Credence did, very much. He felt much more awake after draining the second can, restlessly pacing around the station while he waited for the train to arrive. Percival sat on a bench and read the newspaper cover-to-cover with a great deal of concentration. When Credence passed him for the fourth time, he reached out without looking up, caught Credence by the wrist and yanked him down onto the bench.

“Your transportation system is very frustrating,” he said, “but that is not helping.”

“You travel by broom, don’t you?” Credence asked, daringly. “What’s that like?”

Percival did not seem to mind being questioned. He lowered the paper, looking thoughtful. “It’s fast,” he said, “but cold. I prefer the Floo Network. You haven’t read about that yet? It’s a form of fire magic, very useful. When Floo powder is thrown into a lit fireplace, you can travel to any fireplace within the network. There is horseback, of course, for outdoor travel – the queen prefers it for public processions, she believes broomsticks to be undignified. It is faster to fly on the back of a Thestral, but most people find that disconcerting.”

“Why?” Credence asked, fascinated.

“Only someone who has seen death can see a Thestral,” Percival said, matter-of-factly. “It gives them a sinister reputation. Undeservedly – they are sweet-tempered beasts, for the most part. Ah, would this be our train? It’s hideous.”

Percival returned to his newspaper once they settled aboard the train, murmuring odd words aloud when he was too puzzled to restrain himself. Credence did his best to explain what the President did, then what Twitter was, and got stuck describing the Internet. By then they had to change trains anyway and the subject was left behind, as was the annoyance of the newspaper. Percival slept a little, lightly, one hand resting on his rucksack. The hilt of his sword had been disguised underneath a jacket, but Credence had no doubt it would be in Percival’s hand in a heartbeat if there was a need. For some reason, that was very reassuring.

They travelled for most of the day. Credence regretted explaining social media to Percival, because he had taken to the practicalities of the concept and insisted on buying a phone in order to access the internet, scanning for any mention of shape-shifting monstrosities. The existence of horror movies exasperated him.

“How long do those magic notes last?” Credence asked nervously, shuffling onto the next train.

“A few days, with luck,” Percival said. “But in your world, it is harder to say.”

“We’re _stealing_ ,” Credence moaned.

“Consider it this way. I sincerely doubt we will get recompense for ridding your world of the monster,” Graves said, already deep into Google.

They travelled all day, taking it in turns to sleep, as the route Credence had planned would involve travelling late into the night as well. Percival refused to believe anything from a vending machine was really food, so during one of their longer stops between trains Credence hurried into the first Subway he could find for sandwiches. By that point they were running low on money again and Percival had to perform another replication spell. This time, he let Credence watch. There was nothing showy about it, no sparks or puffs of smoke – Percival muttered the words of the spell under his breath, concentrated on the handful of bills, and when he fanned them out there were twice as many as there had been before.

“It doesn’t work as well on larger objects,” he told Credence. “And it doesn’t work at all on living things, though that has never stopped sorcerers from trying.”

“What about food?” Credence asked, too curious to hold the question in.

“Well, it works, but enchanted food never satisfies the stomach for long. There was a king, once, who tried to feed his army that way. He’s something of a cautionary tale to us all.” Percival looked troubled. “Do you truly have no magic in your world, Credence?”

Credence shifted uncomfortably. “Not that I know about. There are stories, but those aren’t real.”

“How do you know?”

_Because my mother would be the first to burn witches at the stake, if she believed they were real,_ Credence thought. “Because we would have kings like yours, if they could do that.”

Percival looked out the train window, at wheat fields stretching away in the late summer sunlight. The horizon was equally unknown to them both, but there was a difference: while every new place was a wonder to Credence, Percival had something better to compare it to. Silence fell between them again as evening drew in. Credence wanted to ask to see  _Silvertongue,_ stored as it was in Percival’s rucksack with his armour and sword, but he thought better of it. He did not want to know more about the cruel kings and savage beasts of Macusa while his sisters were trapped behind the pages of a story that wasn’t theirs, and while Credence had no way to get them out.

 


	3. Chapter 3

There were a lot of things that Modesty was afraid of. The dark space at the top of the house that was too small to be a proper attic, with the trapdoor that creaked like something dying. Fire, because Ma said that Hell was a fiery pit, and logically that meant fire was like little bits of Hell. The older girls at school, who hid Modesty's bag and locked her in the girls’ bathroom and giggled at whatever answer she gave in class, like her speaking up at all was the joke. Modesty was afraid of the front door, the soft click that meant her mother was home. Dropping into a dark forest was nothing to that. She was the furthest away from that door that she’d ever been. 

Modesty had spent the past three weeks reading through every fantasy book in the Junior Fiction section; tumbling through a magical wardrobe or down a rabbit hole was an eventuality she was well prepared for.  She just wished that it was Credence who had come with her.

While Chastity was having hysterics, Modesty climbed a tree to get her bearings and saw a gleam of armour in the distance. She waved and yelled to get their attention. Knights were supposed to have a code of chivalry, like medieval police, and Modesty didn’t like her chances of surviving in the woods without food or matches. It wasn’t until the knights arrived in the clearing, a glorious cavalcade of armoured figures on horseback, that she saw the heraldry on their saddlecloths and realised this was _Macusa._ That was even better than Narnia – Modesty didn’t much want to be a queen, but she badly wanted to see dragons.

The knights directed their questions to Chastity at first, but she just screamed when they came near her, so they turned to Modesty instead. She decided to tell them the truth, or the bits of truth she felt were safe: that she and Chastity were from somewhere else, that they didn’t know how they got here, that Modesty knew about Macusa from a storybook. The knights exchanged confused looks as she talked, but did not outright accuse her of lying or insanity.

“We’ll have to take them to court,” the leader of the troop said at last.

“Yes please,” Modesty said enthusiastically. “I want to meet Queen Seraphina, she’s amazing.”

A few of the knights laughed at that, and the leader said solemnly, “Quite right, miss.”

They helped the girls up onto horses. Chastity was praying frantically under her breath and refused to open her eyes; Modesty refused to shut hers, clinging onto the belt of the knight in front of her and giving a little whoop as they set off. 

She wondered, suddenly, whether she should ask about Sir Percival. Surely he was somewhere in the forest? She opened her mouth, then decided against it. The knights were being friendly now, but if she started telling them about the false Percival, they might get angry. Modesty would wait until they reached court and she met the queen, and maybe Albus too. They would know what to do. That was what the heroes of the story were for.

*

It took Credence two days to screw up, which was honestly longer than he had expected.

They had been making good progress, but Credence was very tired, and he was so lost in thinking about where they had to go next – whether it was worth trying to find another train running in the right direction, or if they should give up for the night and find a motel instead – that he didn’t notice someone coming up behind him until a hand landed on his shoulder. Instinct had him flinching away, turning around so fast he almost tripped on his own feet.

"Henry," Credence said, and wished he hadn't.

What Henry Shaw Jr was doing on a train station platform at nine thirty at night was anyone’s guess. _Credence’s_ guess was that Henry Shaw Sr, the man elected town mayor so often that anyone else who got the job was only ever keeping his seat warm, had heard about the situation and decided, in his usual paternalistic fashion, to resolve it. He had the law enforcement contacts to make that happen. There had to be a lot of CCTV of Credence’s face at the train stations along the way, however cautious he had tried to be. If it had just been Credence who’d disappeared, that wasn't a story worth chasing. But all three of the pastor’s children going missing, and Modesty just nine years old...oh, that was _news._ Fixing it would be beautiful publicity, and Henry Shaw's up-and-coming son - tipped to soon inherit the mayoral chain - was currently in the market for kissing babies and saving errant members of the local flock.  


Henry Shaw Jr had been three grades above Credence in school. Hanging around with Henry meant you were popular, hanging around with his younger brother Langdon meant you were an official outsider (or just wanted weed), and if neither of the Shaw brothers wanted to know you, then you didn’t really exist. Henry had not bullied Credence. That would require some level of interest. Henry had looked on tolerantly while other people did the bullying, and he had rolled his eyes impatiently at them when they were finished. He had only ever spoken to Credence once, when Credence had bumped into him accidentally in a crowded hallway. “Freak,” Henry had said, not even venomously, just perplexed that someone like Credence could impact him in any way.

Did he even remember Credence’s name?

“You’re damn lucky your mother hasn’t called the police,” Henry said, looking amused. “Stealing a car, really? You’ve got the old homestead in uproar. But my dad’s sorted it out. There doesn’t need to be a fuss. Just fetch the girls and you can slink back home with your tail between your...”

He broke off, his eyes moving past Credence, and the amused look slipped a bit. Credence became aware of a warmth behind his back, the presence of someone standing close.

“Are we done here?” Percival asked. There was an edge to his voice that Credence had not heard since their first meeting, outside the library. This time, the edge wasn’t aimed at him.

Henry looked between the two of them, and laughed. “Is that what happened? You picked up an older man? No wonder old Barebone pitched a fit. My God, I hope he’s paying you well.”

Credence’s face burned. He stepped backwards, unthinkingly; that only brought him up against Percival’s chest, because Percival had not budged an inch. “What the fuck do you care?” Credence burst out, despairingly.

Henry shrugged. “I don’t care. I might not have recognised you if Dad hadn’t sent over a picture. Then again, if you saw the same mosquito every weekday for years, you’d end up remembering it, wouldn’t you?”

Percival punched him.

It was an incredibly efficient punch. Credence was right there and it took him a second to parse exactly why Henry was doubled over. Percival didn’t even look angry; he didn’t have much of an expression at all right now.

“The civilised way to handle this,” he said to the top of Henry’s head, “would be public humiliation in a court duel, but I have seen very little that is civilised in this world of yours. No, don’t get up. I might very well punch you again.” When Henry tried to stand anyway, Percival made a precise gesture and said “Obliviate.”

Henry’s mouth, half-open in the beginning of a threat, stayed open. His eyes went vacant. Percival took Credence by the arm and urged him into motion. “It’ll wear off in a minute,” Percival said, herding Credence aboard their next train. “It would be best, I think, if he didn’t see us again.”

“How did – what do – _why_ ,” Credence gasped.

“I Obliviated him,” Percival said patiently. Seeing this meant nothing to Credence, he elaborated. “I modified his memory. He should be fuzzy on the last six hours or so, and won’t remember seeing you at all. As one of Queen Seraphina’s senior knights, I have the authority to perform Obliviations, and it was done cleanly. There will be no permanent damage. I take it he would have reported you in some way for the use of that car? It would be unjust to let you suffer the consequences when the fault there lies with me.”

“You punched him,” Credence said, blankly.

“It seemed the appropriate course of action. Cruder than I'd usually like, but from what I can see, your world is completely unequipped for managing upstart lordlings.” Percival looked troubled. “Have I given offence in fighting your battle? I assume you knew that man.”

“I – we went to school together. I’m not offended.”

“Is that how it is, here?” Percival asked quietly. The edge was back in his voice. “Two men assumed to be lovers are seen as, what, transgressive in some way?”

Credence could not meet his eye. “Not everywhere.”

“Where you come from?”

Credence nodded. Percival sat back with a small, disgusted noise and said, “I see.”

“Is that why you punched him?” Credence couldn’t help asking. “Because he was uncivilised?”

Percival glanced at him with obvious surprise. “I am Seraphina's Champion, Credence,” he said. “That does not mean I can’t fight for someone else, every now and again.”

*

They arrived at Thunderhill in the middle of the third day, which was also when summer really hit its stride. The sun was beating down on the street outside the station. There was an ice cream truck on the corner doing brisk trade and the strip of shops were all geared for the tourist season, selling camping supplies, swimwear and plush teddy bears wearing Thunderhill Lakes T-shirts. Credence spotted a bookstore with ‘BEACH READS!’ spray painted in hot pink on the display window.

“Can I have the book?” he asked.

Percival hesitated, then reached into his rucksack and handed over  _Silvertongue._ “Guard it well.”

He waited outside the bookstore while Credence went inside. He walked straight up to the counter, put on his best devout face and said to the assistant behind the counter, “When does the signing start?”

“Uh, what?” the assistant said.

“The _signing_ ,” Credence repeated. He put his copy of _Silvertongue_ on the counter with reverential care. “Mr Scamander’s signing. When does he arrive?”

The assistant was beginning to look hunted. “Look, sorry, there must have been a mix-up. We’re not…having a signing…?”

“Is it not until this afternoon?” Credence demanded, his voice rising. “What am I supposed to tell everyone? The Newton Scamander Book Club are arriving on the next train! Myself and Mr Graves – he’s our Chairman – arrived early to get into costume.”

“Costumes…” the assistant echoed faintly. She looked around at the shop full of browsing customers, some of whom were already giving Credence funny looks. “Hey, um, whoever you are, we’re actually _not_ having a signing, but if you want to talk to Newt Scamander, he lives up on Hogsmeade Road, just past the bakery? So, like, go geek out there, huh?”

“You are a good woman,” Credence told her solemnly, in the sincere way that always made people cringe a little when he delivered pamphlets to their doors. He collected _Silvertongue_ and went outside to get Percival. “Hogsmeade Road,” he repeated to him.

Percival smirked approvingly. “Nicely done.”

It was easy to find a map of the town; half the shops in this street sold them at the front counter with keychains and postcards. Hogsmeade Road was on the outskirts of the town, up against the woods. The way was all uphill, but Credence was used to going around on foot and Percival was used to going around in full armour, so the walk did not take them long. It was only when they came in sight of the promised bakery that Credence became aware of their total lack of a cover story.

“What are we going to tell him?” he asked, slowing.

Percival strode ahead. “We won’t have to tell him anything, Credence, he’s a seer.”

There was no doubting that they had found the right house, or at least the gate to it; the house itself was set well back from the street, two storeys of handsome Tudor-style architecture set amidst a garden gone wild. The mail box was a wooden dragon’s head, its fanged jaws parted just enough to admit letters, and as Credence walked up the front path he saw the rest of the dragon’s body snaking through the garden, beneath the overgrown roses. The whimsy continued at the front door, where the knocker was a charming little creature done in bronze. It reminded Credence of a platypus, but with quills like an echidna, and for some reason it made Percival angry. He knocked directly on the door, hard enough to make it rattle.

Credence heard the squeak of hinges as the door opened, heard Percival’s sharp intake of breath, and braced himself.

“Hey there.” The woman in the doorway smiled. She looked as if she had stepped out of an old movie, all blonde curls and dimples and unnatural good humour towards strangers. “What can I do for you?”

“We are here to see Mr Scamander, madam,” Percival said, sounding wrong-footed and not happy about it. “Do we have the correct address?”

“Sure you do,” the woman said easily. “Good luck fishing him out of the pond, though. Tell you what. How about I get you boys some coffee and you talk to Newt when he comes in for lunch?”

She held the door open wider in invitation. Percival thanked her solemnly and stepped past, and Credence trailed uncertainly behind. The woman led them down a hallway that was crowded with grubby boots and an overstuffed umbrella stand, turning off into a large kitchen where a serious baking project was evidently underway. It smelled of spice and simmering apples in here. "Sorry about the mess," the woman said cheerfully. “I’m Queenie, by the way, I kind of live here.”

She held out her hand. Percival took it, and Queenie’s expression changed immediately.

“Gee, honey, you should have said. The first few days in this world are the _worst._ I remember what it was like.  Forget coffee, I’ll break out the gin.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

The first time it happened, Newt Scamander was six years old. He was a precocious reader, following the words with a small finger as he sounded them out aloud; what he wanted to read about was, invariably, animals; and he took what he read very seriously, because if someone had gone to the trouble of writing it down, it was probably true. When combined, these factors resulted in the wronged owl from his storybook winging its way out of the pages and onto the top of his wardrobe, where it glowered suspiciously down at him.

It seemed, then, like a gift. And so he used it. That was what you did with gifts.

Newt could not read just anything out of any book; it was nearly a year before he managed to do it again. This time it was a passionately distressed reading of  _ Black Beauty,  _ and the horse leaping out of the book nearly mowed Newt down in its gallop to freedom. In the years that followed, he performed similar rescues on seven cats, two rabbits, a fish with beautiful rainbow scales, a goose that laid golden eggs, a narcoleptic doormouse and a wolf who assured Newt in a deep melodious voice that the whole incident with the pigs had been a dreadful misunderstanding.

In other households, these creatures might have drawn rather a lot of attention, but the Scamander family manor was not only a sizable piece of estate with sprawling grounds, it was the kind of place where strange animals appearing from nowhere and sticking around was par for the course. Lucille Scamander, Newt’s mother, was a dog breeder of some reknown, and a fiercely soft touch towards animals in need. She adopted stray cats and dogs, fostered abandoned baby birds and actually liked the peacocks that had been introduced to the manor several generations back and strutted about with a palpable sense of entitlement. When Newt was five, Lucille had come across a failing private zoo, had shouted at the neglectful owner for a good hour and a half, and ended up buying up ownership of every animal there. Most went to live at more reputable zoos, but a motley menagerie remained behind. Newt’s brother Theseus called it a madhouse. Newt couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to live any other way.

Theseus, however, was Newt’s reliable litmus test of what was normal and what wasn’t. He wasn’t very good at telling which was which himself, and while knowing the difference didn’t matter at home, it was important at school. Theseus laughed when Newt told him he could read animals out of books, so it was not normal enough to be outright weird, and Newt didn’t tell anyone else what he could do for nearly twenty years – which was when he read aloud from J.D. Abernathy’s  _ Golden Belles  _ and instead of getting the paper mice he had hoped for, he was confronted by two very confused women.

This  magic might be a gift, but it wasn’t one Newt knew how to return.

*

“And we’ve been living here ever since,” Queenie concluded, adding ice to the new round of gin and tonics she was mixing on the kitchen counter. “Me and my sister Tina. He tried very hard to read us back into the book, but it’s been six months and all he’s managed to do is read out some butterflies. It’s messy magic, you know? Well, I guess you _do_ know.”

Percival knocked his drink back in one swallow, though it did nothing to alter his thunderously disbelieving expression. Credence sat on a barstool beside him, nursing the glass of water that he had requested and feeling more nauseous with every word that came out of Queenie’s mouth.

She glanced at him with another one of those bewilderingly warm smiles. “Sure you don’t want a drink, honey? You kinda look like you need one.”

“Um. I don’t drink.” Credence’s voice cracked. He put down his water. Percival was not looking at him; he was staring fixedly into his own empty glass, but Credence felt a sharp awareness of his attention just the same, as the assumptions they had both made fell to pieces.

“So,” Percival said, chillier than Queenie deserved, “Mr Scamander wrote a book.”

Queenie drew in a breath, visibly hesitated, and then admitted, “ _ Silvertongue. _ ”

“Why the fuck,” Percival said, in the same even tone, “did he do that?”

Queenie sat down on the stool next to Credence and shrugged. She seemed to be taking six foot of furiously unsettled sorcerous knight much more in stride than Credence had. “For the beasts, mostly. He wanted to bring them out of his head and into the world, to see and touch…look, I know you’re angry, you have every right in the world to be angry – ”

“In two worlds,” Percival said. “Apparently.”

“But it’s not Newt’s fault. Well, maybe it is a bit his fault.” Queenie sighed. “He didn’t mean any harm. He wrote the book before he found out people could get read out of it, you know.”

“Let us leave aside for now people can be _read_ out of _book_ _s_ _,_ ” Percival gritted through his teeth. “How could this man know what was happening in my world, what was happening in my _head_? I’ve read his book through to the end. It is very detailed. He didn’t mean any harm? Then what do you call what he wrote, were they predictions, has he seen the future?”

Queenie got up and went to the nearest bookshelf, which was crammed with cookery books. From between two large books about cake, she drew a slim, elderly paperback. The woman on the front cover was a stylistic sketch done in blue and yellow, but with the original in front of them, it was clearly meant to be Queenie. The sketch of her was draped with a feather boa and holding a glass of champagne aloft beneath an extravagant chandelier.

“If you can figure out how James Dennis Abernathy, minor government employee and classic 1920s misogynist, knew anything at all about _my_ world,” she said, “you’ll be one up on me.” She laid the book down on the counter, a little gingerly, as if she might jostle something breakable inside the covers. “In this world, they talk about a multiverse. Anything that can happen, has happened, somewhere. Maybe that’s real. Maybe, if a writer gets close enough to the truth, it can break free. That’s the best explanation I’ve got, anyway, I’m open to ideas.”

“Percival,” Credence began, wanting to apologise but failing utterly to find the words.

“I’m going outside,” Percival announced abruptly, and walked out of the room. Queenie and Credence listened to his footsteps recede down the hall, followed by the slam of the front door.

“Huh,” Queenie said. “That’s better than how Tina reacted.”

“I did this to him,” Credence said flatly. “Didn’t I. It wasn’t the monster in the book that made it all happen, it was me. I pulled Percival out of his world.” The full enormity of what he had done was sinking all the way in now. The suspicion had been there all along, but oh, he had so badly wanted to believe someone else was to blame. “My sisters…they’re gone because of _me_.”

“Hey.” Queenie patted his shoulder and winced, like he’d stung her. “ _Hey_. You didn’t know what you were doing. Don’t be so hard on yourself.  We’ll figure something out.”

Credence stood up, not sure what he was doing or where he was going, only certain he couldn’t stay here any longer. He had barged in here on Percival’s coattails and Queenie had been so kind about it, but she was a stranger, she should not  _ have _ to be kind, he should not have brought his mistakes to her door. No – he would go outside, he would tell Percival how abjectly sorry he was, and he would at least try to fix the damage he had done. They still had the book, it was worth trying…assuming, of course, that Percival was still nearby, and had not taken this opportunity to get as far away from Credence as he could.

“He’s still outside,” Queenie said. “Having an existential crisis, I think, but he’s definitely not leaving without getting more answers. Kinda stubborn, isn’t he?”

It registered with Credence, rather belatedly, that Queenie’s kindness was unexpectedly specific.

“Oh, you noticed,” Queenie said, looking embarrassed. “Sorry. I’m not really supposed to do that.”

“What…are you doing?” Credence asked nervously, trying to back away without it being obvious.

“I read minds.” Queenie smiled brightly. Credence stopped moving. “More like, I read people. I hear things clearest when I’m touching somebody, but I don’t need to to do that to know where a person is, or how they feel. I do try not to eavesdrop, I promise, it’s just you guys are feeling pretty…loud, right now. Do you want to talk about it, or brood outside in the sunshine like Mr Shining Armour?”

Credence opened his mouth, intending to say something along the lines of a thank you or a goodbye, or both, but what came out was, “Aren’t you angry?”

Queenie tipped her head. “Angry with who?”

“Mr Scamander. The man who read you out of…” Credence could not bring himself to say _your book_ , as if she came from paper and ink instead of her own living, breathing, magical world. A world that was probably better than this one, and that it seemed unlikely she would ever return to. “Don’t you hate him, for what he did?”

“Would you?” Queenie asked. She sounded like she was genuinely interested in getting an answer.

Credence had not even considered that: the possibility that  _he_ could have fallen into Macusa. If someone had done that to him, he would not have been angry with them; it would have been a dream come true. That was different, though.

“I don’t hate Newt,” Queenie said. “Even Tina doesn’t hate Newt. My world, well, it was home. And I gotta say, there’s things I miss. But it wasn’t a world that liked women very much. I guess that’s how J.D. Abernathy got his psychic connection or whatever with it, ‘cause he didn’t like women much either. I read the stuff he wrote about me. He had lots to say about my legs. And the ‘promise of my lipstick’, whatever that means.” She looked at the book, ruffled a few pages with her thumb. “Tina thinks he invented us. That we came out of his head and Newt’s voice, that we’re not real. That’s why she’s so sad all the time. Your Percival’s probably wondering the same thing.”

“He’s not mine,” Credence said, too sharply. “He’s as real as I am. He’s realler than I am.”

Queenie looked up then. “Oh, honey. Real’s not what you think it is.”

*

During the last war, Seraphina of House Picquery, not yet a queen but leader of her aunt’s royal knights, had cast a spell so powerful it made the ground shake and all the teeth in Percival’s head had vibrated to the point of pain. In that same battle, he himself had wielded magic as fiercely as his sword, defending Seraphina’s flank. The House of Graves was an older line even than the royal family; all their heirs had, for generations, stood beside the throne and ridden with their monarch into the fray.

Percival was no stranger to great and terrible magic. But _this._ He stood gazing out over the gate, his hands deep in his pockets. The street was coated in some dark substance gone pebbly at the edges, lined on the far side with buildings selling things both fairly familiar and utterly unknown, and busy with the metal boxes on wheels that Credence called ‘cars’. It smelled appalling. Everything in this world _smelled._ Everything was slow, and illogical. The monster that had come through could run rampant, and would, if Percival did not stop him. There was nobody else in this world who could. No magic at all.

Except, apparently, here. Newt Scamander and Credence Barebone, whose voices could bring words on a page to life.

Percival was inclined to loathe Scamander on principle. He sounded inexcusably careless. But Credence, who had been visibly terrified of Percival when they first met and who had still offered his help without reservation…Percival could not picture him as great and terrible. Credence was like the young recruits who arrived at the royal barracks fresh from the country, too easily overawed, irresistible targets for the hazing of their more worldly peers. He brought out the same anxious impatience in Percival that those recruits did, and an instinct to shield him from the impending blow Credence was always hunched against. What was more, after reading _Silvertongue_ , Percival knew he owed Credence. If the story had continued the way it was set down in the book...  


What did Percival know about him, though? What basis did he have to assume that Credence was harmless as he seemed?

Another car roared past, streaming fumes. Percival coughed disgustedly and walked away from the gate, turning off the path and onto the grass, picking his way between the beds of mixed flowers and vegetables. They gave way around the side of the house to a ramshackle orchard, where bird-houses in all sizes and shapes hung from the branches. On the other side of the orchard was another gate, and over that…Percival paused, staring. The first thing he saw was an aviary, or rather a series of them, where birds with extraordinary plumage were preening on their perches. What had probably once been lawn was given over to enclosures, small paddocks housing creatures the like of which Percival could not have imagined. He remembered the Niffler-shaped doorknocker and wondered if Scamander had one of those too.

Then, as his eyes travelled in bewilderment across the menagerie, they fell on an enormous pond. A tall, thin man in rubber boots was standing in the shallows, crooning to a floating flock of…ducks? They were a violent shade of pink, and did not appear to be paying the man any attention at all.  He could only be Newt Scamander.

Very quietly, Percival stepped through the gate and started towards the pond. He was only a few feet away when his shadow fell on the water and Scamander turned around, saying “Queenie, don’t, I’ve nearly – ”. He fell abruptly silent. If Percival had not already been sure of his identity, the instant recognition in the man’s eyes marked him guilty. 

They stared at each other. Scamander was swamped inside a yellow shirt three sizes too big for him. His unruly reddish hair was full of feathers and dirt. Here was another apparently harmless man with almost infinite power at his disposal, and unlike Credence, Percival had no desire whatsoever to protect him.

“I understand you are the author of _Silvertongue,_ ” Percival said at last, when it became very clear that Scamander was not going to say a word. “I would like you to explain something for me.”

Scamander swallowed.

“Tell me,” Percival said, “why exactly you wrote my death.”


	5. Chapter 5

It was a beautiful house. The pool was an aquamarine crescent framed by cherry-red deck chairs. Indoors, the floor tiles had a pearly lustre that matched beautifully with the sleek white leather and polished metal of the furnishings – a scene currently marred by the blood trail where a corpse had been, but a few good cleaning spells soon took care of that. The silver mirror on the wall reflected the face of a dead man, who practiced his smile until he was satisfied he had the mimicry just right.

He took pride in his precision. Any sorcerer worth his salt did, and though he was now much more than a mere sorcerer, good habits died hard. For the same reason, he had spent days watching the house, watching the man he was going to become, before he acted. He trod softly up the stairs to the bedroom, opening every drawer, sniffing thoughtfully at the cologne on the dresser and the shampoo in the bathroom, fingering through the clothes in the wardrobe. He selected a peach polo shirt and white slacks, sliding easily into them, his new skin complete.

Gellert Grindelwald returned to the mirror and smiled his own smile. The reflection flickered violently. Glass scattered across the floor in chiming shards as the mirror shattered, but there was a spell to take care of that as well.

Grindelwald had a spell for everything. All he had to decide was what this world had to offer him, and he could take it. He walked to the patio doors and looked beyond the pool, down the forested hillside to the lakes and their congregation of tourists. It was a charming view.

Thunderhill, he thought, would make a marvellous start.

*

The world of the Golden Belles was a fairy tale of chandeliers and diamonds and champagne, and Queenie had been at the centre of it all, the hostess of a never-ending party. The flipside of her Ballroom had been the Office – a grey and severe place where piles of paperwork only ever grew higher and the clack of typewriter keys was the loudest sound allowed. Tina was the bleak Career Girl with a black hole inside where love for a husband and children ought to be, the chilly moon to Queenie’s sun.

It was all written down in black and white. There were even illustrations. Tina had read the book so many times that she had lost count; it was the wound she could not stop re-opening. In the end Queenie had taken the book away from her and hid it, but Tina had most of the story memorised word for word. Of such words, after all, was she made.

The worst thing was how she had never _seen_ that before. From her view now on the outside, the rules of her world made no sense, and yet she had never questioned them. The language might be cruel, but she was the person written on those pages, and whether Queenie would admit it or not, she was too. A case in point: during Tina’s half hour of absence, Queenie had acquired two guests and a tray of canapes to feed them with.

Queenie herself was not in the room. It showed. When Queenie was around, people generally behaved better, or maybe she was just that good at pre-empting arguments. As it was, an argument would be better than this hostile silence. Newt was folded into a chair across the room, as far away from the new arrivals as he could get without fleeing the room, and Tina didn’t blame him. The older of the two men was giving Newt a fixed, frigid stare, while the younger had folded his long limbs into the confines of a battered armchair and gave the impression that he was trying (if failing) to become one with the maroon upholstery.

“Tina,” Newt said, when he saw her in the doorway, sitting up with imploring eyes like she had come to rescue him. That said a lot about how bad the situation must be; the two of them usually did their best to avoid each other. Tina edged reluctantly into the room and sat down between the opposing forces, where she drew the attention of both strangers. The angry one was a dignified variety of handsome, probably military, in his late thirties or early forties. He had the most impressive eyebrows Tina had ever seen. The other man was much younger, nineteen or twenty, thin and pale with a terrible haircut and crumpled clothes, like he was currently living out of a rather small suitcase. He looked at Tina with the same hopeless air that Newt currently had, and that connection gave Tina a sudden horrible suspicion.

“Everyone, this is my big sister Tina!” Queenie said, appearing with a dazzling smile and a plate of tea sandwiches. “Tina, this is Percival, who is from the land of Macusa – he’s a real knight with a sword and armour and everything, isn’t that amazing? - and that’s Credence, who read him here and is trying to send him home. We’re going to help.”

That sentence took a second or two to sort through in Tina’s head. Then she turned incredulously to Queenie and was met with a look of sunny determination so intense it might as well have been a brick wall for all the good fighting it would be. 

“We’re going to _help_?” Tina echoed. What she wanted to say was, there’s another one of them out there and you invited him _into the house_? But one advantage of having a mind-reader for a sister was that she didn’t need to say it – Queenie already knew exactly how she felt.

“Enjoy the sandwiches!” Queenie said, and tugged Tina out into the hall.

“He can do _that_ , and you want to feed him?” Tina hissed.

“This was his first time reading anything out a book, and he brought out two people,” Queenie whispered urgently. “He’s powerful, Teenie, I could feel that just touching him. It’s not his fault he can do these things, he wants to put it right – ”

“He can’t,” Tina said, too loud. “It’s too late. Nobody can put this right.”

Queenie frowned. It always looked unnatural on her face. “It’s not like you to just give up.”

“How would I know?” Tina brushed past. “Maybe I was just written that way.”

She shut herself in the bathroom, which was an immature throwback to when they’d been teenagers living together in a very small apartment with no privacy. She sat on Newt’s fuzzy frog-shaped bathmat and pushed her face into her hands. That apartment, that bathroom, she remembered them so clearly: the mould under the sink where a pipe had leaked, the texture of towels worn thin by years and years of use. Those things had not made their way into Abernathy’s book. Where had they come from then? What about all the people Tina had passed on the street, going about their own business; had they been window dressing, disappearing when their part in the story was over?

The door shook as it was knocked on hard. “Tina, come out. That’s not helping.”

“What’s going to help?” Tina demanded, glaring at the door. She was so _tired_ of letting Queenie get carried away on the wings of unreasonable optimism. “Why don’t you just go and tell whoever that is, your knight, tell him that he’s never going home. Because that’s the truth. Home isn’t real. Home is a story written by a stranger, packaged up and sold in shops until nobody’s really interested any more. Our home is out of print. So.” She scrubbed her sleeve against her eyes. “That’s all the help we’ve got to give him.”

The door shuddered again, like Queenie had kicked it. Tina heard receding footsteps. She should not have said all those things – she wouldn’t have said them, if Queenie had been on this side of the door, where Tina could see the light of hope still stubbornly shining in her eyes.

Then the footsteps came back, two sets of them, and Tina heard a male voice muttering in a language she didn’t know. The lock clicked on its own and Queenie shoved open the door. Tina glimpsed the knight, Percival, frowning in the hall before Queenie shut the door and it was just the two of them.

“You can give up,” Queenie said. Her eyes were wet but her chin was lifted high. “You can pretend our lives don’t mean anything any more if you want, Tina. That’s up to you. Just don’t pretend it’s up to anyone else. I don’t know what you’re waiting for, if there’s supposed to be a sign that this world is the real one, but _I don’t care._ You think you know where we come from, but you _don’t_ know, and I don’t know either. We’re here. If there’s something we can’t do, the only way to find out is to try. So I’m going to help Percival and Credence.”

“Where would you even start?” Tina demanded. They had tried everything, in the beginning. She might not have a high opinion of Newt, but even she couldn’t doubt how hard he had tried for them. “You’re right. We don’t know anything.”

Queenie smiled at her, so bright it was almost fierce. “Now we know we’re not alone.”

*

The towers of Picquery Castle were golden in the late afternoon sun, shimmering peaks of glass and bronze metal reflected in the river that ran beside it. From horseback, coming through the valley, it was the most beautiful view Modesty had ever seen. She clung to the belt of the knight seated in front of her as the horses picked up pace.

Some way behind, she could hear Chastity crying, which spoiled the moment a bit. Throughout the journey, the only way to keep Chastity from tears, hysterical screaming or a combination of both had been enchanting her to sleep for hours at a stretch. Modesty had tried to talk to her for the first couple of days, but there didn’t seem much point any more. It was not as if Chastity had ever looked out for her at home – why should it be any different here? So what, Modesty thought. She could look out for herself.

Everywhere she turned, there were signs that this was a world shaped by magic. The roads were effortlessly smooth stretches, never turning into inconvenient clouds of dust or quagmires of mud no matter what the weather was like; the outskirts of the city were demarcated by a tall stone wall and passing through made Modesty’s ears pop and the hair on her arms stand up. She giggled delightedly. The knight in front of her glanced briefly back with a bemused smile. “Newcomers don’t usually like that,” he remarked.

“It’s _magic_ ,” Modesty said.

The streets of the city were busy. Modesty’s neck got sore from craning around, trying to see it all at once. She saw a girl come out of a bookshop and give a shout as her book dropped to the ground, scrabbling away along the pavement with a little rustling snarl. Two boys around Credence’s age zoomed overhead on broomsticks, trailing sparks and making Modesty’s knight sigh in exasperation. The magazines in a rack outside a shop had pictures that smiled and beckoned at passersby. Modesty recognised Queen Seraphina on one cover, waving graciously.

The troop of knights rode toward a tall gate and another wall, with the shining towers on the other side. Modesty leaned sideways to see around her knight as they rode forward without slowing. The gate was not opening. She drew in a breath, gripping on so tight to the belt that its leather cut into her fingers; Chastity screamed like a banshee. Then they were passing _through_ the bars of gate, melting past the metal as if it was a mirage, and clattering into an enormous courtyard. The knight swung down and lifted Modesty to the ground.

“If you’ll wait here for a minute, miss,” he said.

“Mm,” Modesty said, not really listening. She was too busy staring around at the inside of an honest-to-goodness _castle._ Even Chastity had gone quiet, though in her case it was less awe and more horror. All the knights were dismounting, and in the general confusion Modesty didn’t notice, at first, that she was being watched.

When she saw the man in the blue cloak, however, she guessed who it  had to be . His eyes were even bluer, behind their half-moon spectacles, and he smiled a little crookedly when he realised he had been seen, walking towards her  through the milling horses . The leader of the knights saw him too and stepped forward.

“My lord, these two girls were found in the woods. I brought them in for questioning because – ”

“Because they are very special,” Albus Dumbledore said mildly. “Yes, Minerva. I know.” He smiled. “Hello, Modesty. I’ve been waiting for you to get here. Do come inside.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week has been wild, but I did finally finish the chapter!

“Okay, everyone!” Queenie announced, clapping her hands together like a game show host. “We’re pooling resources. Books on the table.”

She followed her own instruction, laying down _Golden Belles_. The plates of mostly uneaten canapes had been removed from the living room table, replaced by a coffee pot that Tina and Percival were steadily draining. It was probably a lucky thing Queenie had put away the gin. Nobody in the room wanted to be there, but that was just too bad. If a bit of gentle bullying was what it took to save the day, Queenie would step up. She had to believe there was a solution; it seemed that she would have to believe enough for all of them.

Percival gave her a long, hard look over the rim of his cup before reaching into his rucksack, pulling out a paperback of  _Silvertongue._ He tossed it, with steely lack of ceremony, onto his end of the table. Credence flinched at the slap of paper on wood. His guilt was a sort of toxic miasma on that side of the room, giving Queenie an urge to turn on all the fans and see if she could blow it away. He had not noticed what she had; even in a state of angry indecisiveness, Percival had chosen to seat himself at Credence’s side, a united front against the book that had upended both their lives.

“The priorities of this meeting,” Queenie said, “are to stop the homicidal shape-changing wizard guy from doing his thing here, and to figure out if we can reverse the magic reading to get back into our own worlds. Right?”

Tina sighed. Percival was frowning again – had he ever stopped? – but nodded.

“Okay, I’ll go first,” Queenie said, leaning forward. “My book was written by J.D. Abernathy in this world, in the year 1926. According to his biography I’m inspired by a girl called Dolly Goldstein, who wouldn’t marry him. I guess he wasn’t very creative, because I was read out just after Tina had talked me into ending my engagement, and before I could be talked back into it. Us two were the only characters in the scene. One minute we were in my flat, the next we were knee-deep in Newt’s pond. Newt, any insights?”

“No,” Newt said. There was a long, uncomfortable pause before he made a visible effort and continued. “I don’t know how it works. It usually doesn’t. I was surprised to see you. I didn’t even like your book very much.” He looked sideways, apologetically, at Tina, and shut up.

Queenie had not liked the book much either; not when she was living in its world, and even less when she read the story through. She liked this world much better – but now was not the time for that conversation. “Percival,” she said, “what about you?”

“I was going to be murdered,” Percival said.

Credence made a choking noise and looked directly at Percival for the first time since Queenie’s accidental bombshell in the kitchen. Obviously, this was news to him. Percival did not respond, too busy staring with venomous intent at Newt. 

“I was in the woods,” he said, “tracking the monster that has been terrorising my kingdom – to give him his true name, Grindelwald – only to discover that he was tracking me. He had already taken over my face, my life. We were read out in the moment of confrontation. On the next page, he would have broken my neck and claimed my place at Queen Seraphina’s side, where he would scheme her assassination.”

“He failed!” Newt protested. “Albus fought him, Grindelwald was defeated.”

“Seraphina lost an eye,” Percival snarled. “And let’s return to the part where he _killed me_.”

“It was a story,” Newt muttered. “I needed a plot twist. I didn’t know you would…die.”

“Well, you did write it,” Percival said icily. “‘The life in his eyes was gone, leaving hollow mirrors for the night sky’. Isn’t that right? At least it was quick.”

Newt swallowed. For a man with his abilities, it was surprising how much he struggled with words. When there was not a clear right or wrong answer, when he was required to tailor his response to the murky turmoil of someone else’s emotions, he was lost. Though Queenie had to admit, even the quickest talker would have difficulty producing an answer under these circumstances.

“I’m sorry,” Newt said at last, very quietly. “I…I should have known better.”

“On the plus side, Percival,” Queenie interjected, determined to keep her meeting on track, “you’re alive! And Grindelwald is here, which isn’t a great thing for this world, but he’s not pillaging and assassinating in yours.”

Tina sighed. “Queenie, stop.”

Queenie folded her arms. “No,  _you_ stop. You don’t think our world is out there? Sure. You can think that, and I’ll think you’re wrong. Credence’s sisters went  _somewhere_ . I think they went to Macusa. Maybe that’s how it works, maybe something has to go in for something else to come out. Like physics.” She appealed to Newt. “Haven’t you ever noticed something like that?”

Offered the idea as an intellectual challenge, Newt ventured a little out of his shell. “I never read something so big as a person before, but you might be right. Sometimes things would disappear. When I read out the wolf, one of our dogs went missing. I thought he’d run away.” He looked up then, horrified. “I read my dog into that book?”

“You read _two people_ into our book?” Tina said, sitting up. Queenie felt the pulse of her shock – it had been a long time since Tina felt anything that strongly except sadness. “But the book stayed the same! I’ve read it over and over. How could it stay the same with people in it who don’t belong?”

“It stayed the same without us,” Queenie pointed out. “It’s just words on a page. We’re not.”

“Where is this speculation getting us?” Percival interrupted, leaning forward.

“There must be rules,” Queenie said eagerly. “Maybe we can work them out. New plan! Newt, Credence, you stay here with me and compare notes. Percival, Tina, how about you go through the news? Your shape-changer must be up to something by now. Grab the day’s newspapers, if you can.” She glanced out the window. It was getting late, afternoon fading into a long summer sunset. “You’re staying here tonight, of course,” she added to Credence, since he seemed to be the one who needed to hear it; left to his own devices, Percival would probably construct a tent out of branches and sleep like a log in hail or shine.

“We could not impose,” Percival said immediately, proving it.

“You can,” Queenie said serenely, “and you will.”

They could. They did. Percival gave off an air of mild perplexity at following Queenie’s orders, but in her own world she had controlled an entire ballroom with charm and self-confidence alone, and it was the kind of skill that travelled well. Tina led the way out, resigned to doing her sister’s bidding, and ducked across the road to buy whatever newspapers were left at this hour. Credence and Newt remained in the living room. Queenie, shamelessly eavesdropping for potential clues, overheard snatches of a halting conversation about the unexpected perils of adventurous reading. Newt got onto the topic of dragons, and how he’d never ever managed to read one out no matter what he did, and while he didn’t actually  _say_ ‘this is hopelessly unfair’, it was obvious that was what he was getting at. Newt was a sweet person really, but he had a one-track mind, and humans rarely rated high on his list of priorities. 

Queenie decided to leave them to it. She started dinner and spied on Tina and Percival instead. They had spread newspapers all over the dining table, reading steadily in total silence. Well, they were making an effort. Queenie tried not to feel too dejected as she diced carrots, stirred sauce and kept a mental finger on the emotional temperature of the household.

The truth was, she did believe there was a way back to her world. It made sense. A door that opened in one direction had to open the other, if you found the key. The real question – the one Tina had not even allowed herself to consider – was whether going back would be worth it. Queenie liked this world. She liked how fast and bright it was, how people could talk to each other with teeny little boxes they kept in their pockets. She really liked the clothes. There was so much more of this world to see, too: if it was a choice between returning to her ballroom or jumping on a plane to New York, she honestly was not sure which she would choose.

No, that wasn’t quite right. She would choose the path her sister took. But she might regret it.

*

It was the boy. It must have been him, and the book. 

Grindelwald’s first requirements now met – a place to stay, an identity to claim, resources at his disposal – he turned his attention to the only question left that really mattered: whose spell had brought him here? The power to summon a sorcerer of Grindelwald’s stature against his will would be a staggering thing. He had suspected the hand of Albus Dumbledore at first, but now he saw it was only random happenstance, with no greater plan; he had been plucked from the centre of a plot  _decades_ in the making, and the only explanation he could see was the boy.

History, it seemed, was repeating itself. How…interesting.

Grindelwald was not angry. Perhaps he should be. All that work, all that death, and his goal so close at hand – but this world was so rich and so defenceless, it really was irresistible. And there was that boy. Grindelwald had seen and dismissed him on the steps of that building where he had first arrived. It had been a mistake. Not one that Percival Graves would have made, most likely, and that could work to Grindelwald’s advantage. He knew nothing of the boy. Graves, though, Grindelwald knew a great deal about Percival Graves.

Grindelwald walked upstairs in a scarlet silk robe that he had found and taken to, sipping on a glass of reasonably good wine. His situation was satisfactory for now, but he wanted the way home within easy reach when he was ready for it. The boy had looked down-trodden and dull, Grindelwald could surely keep him subdued without much effort. Though…better to be careful. This was another chance, one Grindelwald had never imagined he would get.

This time, he would not hesitate. He would take what he wanted, and he would _keep_ it.

*

Chastity was in a castle surrounded by mad people and demonic powers. There was a man in a cloak who knew her name without being told, and Modesty was following him around like a freshly imprinted duckling. Chastity trailed some way behind them, for lack of a better option.

She would survive this. Under the terror, she knew it as a fact. She had survived long enough to be found by Mary-Lou Barebone, her rescuer and later her mother – she had become the favourite child, and survived that too, pulling down blankness inside herself while the belt cracked over and over in the next room. She was heartless, because having a heart was dead weight she could not afford. It was a lesson neither Credence nor Modesty had ever learned, along with lying properly, looking thoroughly inside the mouths of gift horses, and shutting the fuck _up_.

Chastity had been offered a dress. She had left the pile of green velvet untouched, however badly she wanted to change her clothes after days astride a smelly animal. Modesty had no such scruples, scampering around in what looked like a princess costume from an old movie. The man in the cloak, who had told them to call him Albus, smiled at her in an avuncular way that Chastity instinctively distrusted. Albus – ugh, no, she would call him Dumbledore instead – was a powerful man in this place, that much was easy to tell. Men like that wanted things in exchange for their largesse. Chastity remembered the Shaws at school, the way their father had looked at her when she brought around the collection tin in church. She glared at Dumbledore’s back. Modesty was chattering at him, talking more than Chastity had ever heard from her before, a rush of questions that Albus was answering steadily.

“But I don’t understand,” Modesty said at last, when Chastity was beginning to think she might actually have to ask for herself, “how did you know we were coming? Do you have magic phones here?”

Dumbledore chuckled. “I’m not sure what phones are, my dear, but to answer your other question, I was not forewarned by the knights. I am newly arrived at court myself. I have been travelling, you know, through the kingdom, and even Minerva’s best owl would be hard put to find me in the places where I have been. You must tell me more about your world, about these ‘phones’ and ‘cars’.” He stopped at a large wooden door, set deep into the wall of the corridor. It looked heavy, a door to keep secrets behind. “And in return, I will show you how I knew to find you.”

He opened the door. Modesty, who still possessed some caution, let Dumbledore go first and only followed after a moment standing in the doorway, looking around the room with wide eyes. It was a big square space, but held only one thing: a six-foot high mirror, free-standing in an ornate frame in the middle of the floor. Chastity saw her reflection, face pale and closed-off, her once flawlessly ironed dress crumpled and dirty. She saw Modesty too, small and watchful in her borrowed costume. Dumbledore, Chastity saw, had sidestepped as he entered the room, so that he was not reflected in the glass.

She did the same thing. Modesty was left alone between them.

“It’s just a mirror,” she said doubtfully. “What does it do? Does it talk?”

“Step closer,” Dumbledore said.

Chastity could have stopped her. Modesty was within arm’s reach. Chastity could have done a lot of things, over the years, if she had been willing to pay the price, and she had not. It was a bit late in the day to be a good sister now. She watched Modesty step forward.

“What am I meant to…” Modesty began. Then she stopped, just staring.

“This,” Dumbledore said, “is the Mirror of Erised. It shows what you desire most, but sometimes it shows more – how that which you desire will come to pass. A dangerous gift to the wrong eyes.” Chastity knew blankness very well. Dumbledore’s voice remained light and warm, and she did not trust it an inch. “What do you see, Modesty?”

“I’m grown-up,” Modesty whispered, wonderingly. “I’m tall. I’m wearing black lipstick and red nail polish and everyone’s looking at me. They’re all there, the whole town…we’re at the funeral…I’m walking out. It’s so sunny outside.”

“The funeral?” Dumbledore prompted gently.

Modesty went silent. Dumbledore let it go. “I wanted you to see the Mirror, Modesty,” he said, “because that is how I knew to find you.”

She looked at him with wide, hopeful eyes. “You saw me?”

“Yes,” Dumbledore said. “I saw you and your brother.” His eyes moved to Chastity. He said, smoothly, “and your sister. I think together, you may be able to save us all.”

That was when Chastity really began to hate him.

 


	7. Chapter 7

Credence woke in a bed that wasn’t his, under dinosaur print sheets. Newt’s sheets, Newt’s spare room. It was a step up from jerking awake on a train – a step up, as well, from the rap on his bedroom door, the chilly shock of another day starting under Mary-Lou Barebone’s roof – but still disorienting, and Credence lay still for a few minutes, counting back in his head. Four days since the library. He rolled over, and went still again.

They had been up late researching, to no particular avail. Percival had decided coffee was his favourite thing about this world, next to the internet, and had abused his access to both until Queenie insisted they all get some sleep. She had set the two guests up with clean sheets and folded towels, which Newt certainly would not have thought of, and Percival had insisted that Credence take the bed. He had put together an orderly sort of nest on the floor for himself with such efficiency that there had been no question of protest.

He was asleep there on his side, facing Credence, head resting on his arm. For days, Credence had been stealing glances and hoping he would not be noticed; now he could stare. Percival had taken his shirt off to sleep, which made for quite a view, but it was his face Credence couldn’t stop looking at. He looked so different with his eyes shut. His hair curled a little, if left to itself, and there was silver threaded in it. Credence wondered how old Percival was, and immediately felt a stab of crippling embarrassment. As if age was an obstacle to be thinking about. As if he even had a right to be thinking of obstacles when the one thing Percival wanted, or ever could want from him, was a way home.

As if, Credence thought, he even knew what he wanted, what exactly it was he couldn’t have. The realisation of his sexuality had felt like an awful inevitability, a highlighted note to add to the list of ways he was an unsatisfactory son. He’d figured out just enough of who he was to pretend he was something else. It was like he had hidden pieces of himself in a mental bunker and now that falling bombs were no longer imminent, he couldn’t quite remember how to open the door.

Credence watched Percival shift in his sleep, turning his face into his arm. It was normal, though, wasn’t it, to want impossible things?

Sunlight filtered around the edges of the curtains, indicating late morning, maybe ten or eleven o’clock. Credence slipped out of bed as quietly as he could and padded across the floor barefoot, edging out into the hall. He smelled savoury deliciousness drifting from the kitchen and followed it, hovering just outside the doorway. Queenie was up; if the sheer quantity of breakfast she had prepared was any indication, she had been up for a while. She was currently juicing oranges mechanically, staring out the window like she was worlds away. Perhaps she was.

Abruptly, she snapped back to herself and turned to Credence, smiling. He must have been thinking loudly enough to be heard. “Hi there. You hungry?”

“I guess,” Credence said apologetically. He sat down on a barstool and within the space of about a minute there was a plate with a bit of everything arranged in front of him with an iced glass of juice and a pressed, snow white cloth napkin folded around the silverware. It felt like he’d wandered unknowingly into an upscale B&B with one-on-one telepathic service. Queenie made the dance of it look natural, something anyone could do without particular effort. Credence wondered if that was magic from her world or just who she was.

He took a bite. Oh, definitely magic.

Food in the Barebone house had been fuel, and sometimes punishment. Mary-Lou bought in bulk to make it go further, and always bought the same six or so basic ingredients to make the same meals week after week. Chastity cooked, Credence and Modesty cleaned, and they all had to eat together at the table under Mary-Lou’s chilly grey eye. Credence had not thought of food as something to _enjoy_ before, just an experience that was better than being hungry.

Queenie’s cooking was an epiphany. She had made hash browns, scrambled eggs with cheese and fresh herbs, enormous blueberry muffins that had been kept at a perfect temperature in the oven, and a baked thing a bit like a lasagna but more like a quiche that was apparently breakfast food in Queenie’s world. She advised Credence eat it with mustard, which he did. He’d never tasted mustard before. It was all unbelievably good. Even the orange juice entered the brand new line-up for Best Thing Credence Had Ever Eaten. It was only after he’d ploughed through two heaped plates and three glasses of juice that he realised what a spectacle he must be making of himself.

“Don’t be silly,” Queenie said, noticing the mood change immediately and guessing its cause with her usual unnerving accuracy. “I didn’t make all this food for the hell of it, you know.”

Credence rubbed at his face with the napkin, cheeks hot. “You didn’t make it all for me, either.”

“You don’t know that. I’m the mind-reader, not you,” Queenie said lightly. “This is what I do best. It’s not like it’s hard. I even had time to run out to grab milk and newspapers while the muffins were baking.” She smiled again, and it was a lovely smile, but Credence did not think she was happy. That did not seem right. Someone as wonderful as Queenie should always be happy.

“You’re an amazing cook,” he said, awkwardly heartfelt.

Queenie rested her fingertips on the back of his hand. “Oh, honey, that’s so sweet. You think I should open a hotel? That sounds like fun. Newt might draw the line at buying one for me, though. You see, me and Tina don’t have any birth certificates or school records or anything, so getting jobs means a lot of lies. I’ve tried a couple of times, but they figure out there’s something weird about me pretty fast.” She shrugged. “Tina got worried. Now I stay home.”

_But it’s not your home,_ Credence thought, before he could stop himself.

“Yeah,” Queenie said quietly, letting go of his hand. “There’s that.”

Credence was going to apologise, but didn’t get the chance. The sound of a door quietly closing down the hall brought all his self-preservation instincts to the fore, lurching up off the stool to move the plates (the evidence) before…

It wasn’t his mother, of course. It was Percival, bed-head ruthlessly combed out, ready for coffee and research in the same way he’d probably be ready for duelling in his real life. Queenie had a steaming mug and a plate of eggs already waiting by the time he set foot in the kitchen; he looked at them, opened his mouth a little, then visibly decided not to question it. Coming from Macusa, he had taken Queenie’s magic more or less in stride.

“Good morning,” he said to her with a small bow. He greeted Credence with a hand on the shoulder and the statement of, “You look better.”

Credence was not sure what to make of that. “Queenie got papers,” he offered, after a moment, pushing the stack in Percival’s direction. “Do you want me to help?”

“If you like.” Percival started turning pages. “You’re looking for unusual events, disappearances, wealthy and influential people behaving noticeably out of character. You may have a better eye for that, as these are your public figures. I am assuming, for the time being, that Grindelwald is still in the country. There are plenty of opportunities that would entice him. It’s harder to say where he might be by this point. My guess would be a large city, where his activities are more likely to go unnoticed, and he has access to powerful institutions.”

They sat together, elbows bumping occasionally as they turned pages. Credence decided to focus on the local paper first, to get it out of the way. _The_ _Thunderhill Gazette_ was approximately 50% rental advertisements and 50% improbable gossip. According to the editorial, reality TV star Gilderoy Lockhard had been staying on a hillside villa for nearly a week without any public appearances, which surely meant he’d signed all sorts of confidentiality agreements about a new project _right here in town._ There was a lot of photographic evidence of Lockhart walking around his pool, looking tall and blonde and chiselled.

“Oh, hey, is he in Thunderhill?” Queenie asked, leaning over to look. She caught Credence’s blank incomprehension and tutted at him. “Honey, don’t you watch TV? I love it. Telenovelas are the best but reality TV is great too, everybody says just what they’re thinking. Lockhart’s been in a dozen shows and now he’s hosting one himself. It’s the silliest thing ever. I don’t miss an episode.”

Percival looked up perplexedly, glanced at the spread of photographs, and the next moment his hand was spread flat on the page as if to hold it against a sudden violent wind. “That man,” he said. “Is he powerful? Influential?”

Queenie blinked. “He’s got a lot of followers on Twitter.”

“Is that an important forum?” Percival demanded.

“I guess so,” Queenie said slowly. “Percival, are you saying…that’s not Gilderoy Lockhart?”

Percival tapped the largest of the pictures. The man in it was wearing an open-necked blue polo shirt and underneath that, a necklace with an odd sort of pendant. A triangle, enclosing a circle, which in turn enclosed a straight silver line.

“That’s Gellert Grindelwald,” Percival said flatly. “He’s here.”

*

“We were friends, in the beginning,” Albus said. “I expect that surprises you.”

“ _No_ ,” Modesty said, willing to be amazed. “Did he horribly betray you?”

Albus gave a small pained smile. “Our friendship ended rather badly, yes. It is important you understand what happened, however, so that you understand what is happening now.”

He was talking like every wise mentor Modesty had ever read about. She nodded eagerly.

After showing them the Mirror of Erised, Albus had shown the two girls to a tower room with a gently smouldering fireplace and a set of wingback armchairs. He had offered them lemon sweets that fizzed on the tongue like soda (Modesty had stolen cans of Coke out of the school canteen a couple of times, so she knew the taste) and cups of juice that was orange but not orange juice, and then he’d explained. The monster had a name, a mysterious past, a tragic history. Albus spoke as if Modesty was just like him, a wizard and a hero, an _equal_ , who would need to know these things. She wanted to stay here forever. If one of the side effects was Chastity sitting in a corner, trying to kill everyone with her eyes alone, well, Modesty could handle that.

“When I was a boy,” Albus said, and Chastity actually snorted quietly to herself. Albus continued as if he had not heard. “I lived in a village called Godric’s Hollow, very far from here, with my younger brother and sister. My brother was near me in age. Ariana was much younger. Our father had died in the war, and our mother was…inattentive. Ariana suffered from bad dreams. The only thing that truly comforted her was reading.”

He paused, his eyes drifting to the fire, and though his expression did not change, Modesty knew he did not want to be telling this story. She sat up straighter, wary.

“She loved to read to us, whenever we would listen, which was not often enough,” Albus said. “Winter was her favourite season, because we would sit with her by the fire and she could share her stories with us. On rainy days, she would read for hours. There was one book she loved best, very old, it had been in the house for as long as I could remember. One night she was reading from it, and the most extraordinary magic happened: what she read about appeared in front of us. She read three things out of that book, and three things went into it. A spoon, a clock. And our mother.”

Modesty stared at him, arms wrapped around her knees. This was not fun any more.

Albus reached into a pocket and drew out a small book, bound in faded blue linen. He held it out and Modesty read the title. _The Tales of Beedle the Bard._ There was a symbol on the cover, a roughly etched triangle enclosing a circle and a line.

“This is the book she read,” Albus said quietly. “This is the book Gellert Grindelwald came from.”


	8. Chapter 8

_There were once three brothers who were travelling along a lonely, winding road at twilight._

“Is this safe?” Modesty wanted to know. She was on the edge of her chair, ready to get up and leave if Dumbledore’s answer was not convincing enough; Chastity, one step ahead, was right next to the door. “How do you know it won’t happen again?”

Dumbledore looked over the top of the book. “I am not a Silvertongue, Modesty.”

She was so easily distracted, if you pushed the right buttons. “A Silvertongue?”

“It was what Gellert called Ariana,” Dumbledore said. There was a very slight edge to his voice, as if he regretted bringing it up; it would have been inaudible if both Chastity and Modesty had not been so sharply attuned to reading moods. “Later, it was what he called himself, as he tried to do what she had done. As if he could will that magic under his control with the right words.” Dumbledore shook his head. “Well. So much of magic is words. Shall I continue?”

_No,_ Chastity thought, but the refusal lurked behind her teeth instead of making it out into the world. Modesty nodded, and Dumbledore read again from the blue book.

_There were once three brothers who were travelling along a lonely, winding road at twilight. In time, the brothers reached a river too deep to wade through and too dangerous to swim across. However, these brothers were learned in the magical arts, and so they simply waved their wands and made a bridge appear across the treacherous water. They were halfway across it when they found their path blocked by a hooded figure._

_And Death spoke to them._

Chastity knew what fairy tales were. She had even read some of them, during that liminal, deniable time when she was studying accounting at college, and she had hated them – though she hated this one more. She could see the moral coming from a mile off.

_Death was cunning. He pretended to congratulate the three brothers upon their magic, and said that each had earned a prize for having been clever enough to evade him._

The eldest brother asked for a wand to defeat all other wands, because that’s what he thought power was (Chastity’s college experience had also included superhero movies; she knew which one she’d pick). The second brother asked for a stone to bring loved ones back from the grave. That was worse than blasphemy, it was stupid. You didn’t win by making up new rules when it suited you, you learned the real rules and played the game  _better_ . The youngest brother was cleverer, inevitably – it was always the youngest child, wasn’t it? – and asked Death’s own cloak, to make himself invisible. So he lived, for as long as he chose and on his own terms, while his older brothers met their violent ends.

Dumbledore closed the book. “Ariana loved this story,” he said quietly. “I believe that was key to what she did. She wanted to be there, in that world, more than she wanted anything else. Her wanting was enough to pull three things from it. The wand. The cloak. And a boy.”

“But he’s not in the story,” Modesty pointed out. “Grindelwald isn’t mentioned once.”

“Oh, he is. Not referred to by name, so we didn’t know who he was, at first, but he’s there.” Dumbledore opened the book again and read, “ _That very night, another wizard crept upon the oldest brother as he lay, wine-sodden, upon his bed. The thief took the wand and, for good measure, slit the oldest brother’s throat._ That is who Gellert Grindelwald was.”

“Did he try to kill you too?” Modesty asked, hushed.

“Never,” Dumbledore said. He put the book down. There was a minute of silence, the fire snapping in the grate, and then he said, “He didn’t need to. He was a thief, you know. When he understood enough about our world, he took the wand and went his own way. The Cloak, I managed to keep, but he wants it. The myth of the Hallows is this: that whosoever possesses all three of Death’s gifts will be immortal and invulnerable. This is the power that Grindelwald seeks.”

“What does the mirror have to do with it?”

Chastity was usually so, so good at keeping her mouth shut. There was no point in talking half the time anyway, it wasn’t like anyone wanted to hear what she thought. It had been bad enough to be stranded here – different customs, different rules, different  _world_ – but apparently all this bullshit about magic wands and invisibility cloaks was a real thing she had to worry about as well, and Dumbledore’s delicately spun half-truths were less than useless to her. 

“The mirror,” she repeated, when Dumbledore did not immediately reply. Modesty was staring. “What was the point of showing us that, again?”

Dumbledore had such calm eyes. Calm like that was not to be trusted. “What Grindelwald wanted most was to know how to  _get_ what he wanted,” he said, “and so that is what it showed him.”

“This mirror has no security?”

“What it had was not enough to deter him.” When Dumbledore smiled at her, Chastity had the distinct sense of being humoured. “It is, of course, better protected now.”

By  _spells_ , probably. “You couldn’t look in it and want to stop him?”

“If only it were that simple, my dear. The Mirror’s magic is more complicated than that.” 

Chastity looked at him with her own, unfriendly calm. Modesty thought all of this was a wonderful adventure; while Dumbledore could keep her happy, it seemed that he would. That was not kindness. It was practicality. He wanted something from her, and from Chastity, and maybe somehow from Credence too.

He had showed them the Mirror of Erised because really, it didn’t matter what they saw. Dreams were pretty bits of glass. Reality was a trap. 

*

Credence was still not sure what had gone wrong. One minute Percival had been quietly flipping through newspapers, the next he was locking all the windows and muttering protective spells that made Credence’s hair stand on end. Not that all the spell-casting was doing a thing to reassure him; he slammed back into the kitchen a few minutes later and shoved Credence’s bag into his unprepared arms.

“You need to get out of here,” Percival said urgently. “Where can you go, have you any other family? I copied more money.” This was pushed into Credence’s pocket. “Take the next train.”

Credence was being propelled toward the door before he could get the breath to protest. “No!” he said, pulling free and scrambling back out of Percival’s reach. “What did I do? Why are you sending me away? I’m sorry! I didn’t – whatever it was, I didn’t mean – ”

“What did you _do_?” Percival echoed, disbelieving. “Credence, Grindelwald is here. The only reason he would be here is because we are. He is hunting us. He’s done it before, to me, in the forest. You read it in the book. I was a damn fool to think he wouldn’t do the same thing again. You can’t be here when he catches up to us, the things he would do to get control of you do not bear thinking about.”

He reached out for Credence again. Credence dodged away from him, which surprised them both.

“I don’t have anywhere to go,” Credence said. There – he could be honest after all. “I won’t leave.”

“Credence,” Percival said urgently. “I am trying to keep you alive.”

“Then don’t try to send me home!” Credence shouted. “Because I’ve been dying there for years!”

Percival stared at him. Credence heard the words repeat in his head like an echo. He didn’t think he had ever shouted before, not since he was old enough to understand the consequences. A truth he had never quite acknowledged to himself had exploded into the open and in the process had revealed another truth, half-known: he was not going back. Whatever happened next, magic or murder, he was going to be here, and if he had to leave, he would go somewhere new, but he would not return that town and that house, not ever. If he could get Modesty out of the book, he’d take her with him. Chastity…Credence didn’t know what Chastity would do, if she would want to come with them. She would look after herself, he supposed. She always had.

Percival opened his mouth. Queenie got there first. “How about we all sit down,” she said, with iron sweetness, “and you can tell me exactly why you’re scaring Credence.”

They sat down. Queenie cheated; Credence saw her hand brush against Percival’s neck as she walked by his chair, and her lips pressed together at whatever she heard. Percival did not appear to notice, his eyes fixed on the door. When it opened, he surged to his feet, but it was only Tina and Newt, who had been woken by the commotion and wanted to know what was going on.

“Grindelwald is here,” Percival told them, and Newt went white.

“In town, not the house,” Queenie said quickly. “I _would_ know.  Percival, that’s enough protective spells for now, my ears are ringing and the tip of my tongue is starting to go numb.”

“Protective spells don’t do that,” Percival protested, momentarily distracted.

“They do to me.” Queenie’s hand shot out to grab Newt’s wrist just before he began to move. “No, honey, you’re staying right here where I know you’re not being kidnapped.”

“Fuck,” Percival said, with horrified realisation. “You have to leave too.”

“I am not leaving!” Credence snapped.

“I can’t go anywhere, my animals,” Newt began.

“Why will no one _listen to reason_?”  Percival stood up to storm out and Queenie grabbed him too.

“How about we sit down,” she repeated, louder, “and you don’t get kidnapped either.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Percival said. “I’m not useful to him any more, he’d just kill me.”

“Who is killing people?” Tina demanded, taking a rolling pin off the countertop and looking around the room as if a murderer might leap from behind the fridge. 

Q ueenie looked as if she was holding onto her patience with some effort. “Nobody is getting killed! You know why? Because Credence and Newt aren’t running off in a panic, Percival isn’t going to a fight half-cocked, you aren’t going to pretend there’s no point in being alive, and I am not going to lose my temper!” 

She yanked on both of the arms she was still holding  until their owners gave in and sat down . Tina perched warily on the countertop without putting down the rolling pin. 

“Okay,” Queenie said. She took a deep breath and turned to Newt. “Tell us about Grindelwald. What’s so scary about this guy?”

Percival and Newt gave her identical incredulous looks. Credence thought about what he had read in _Silvertongue,_ of the destruction Grindelwald left in his wake and how when it was done, he disappeared, untraceable until the next town was left in ruins. It had been terrible but exciting, words on a page. Only now they were not just words any more. Thunderhill was no different from any of those towns in Macusa – its peaceful streets, people going about their lives – but there was no magic here, no hope of resisting what Grindelwald could do.

Except there was magic. Credence and Newt could do something that Grindelwald could not. Percival was right. If Grindelwald knew where they were, he would carve a bloody path to get to them.

“Gellert Grindelwald,” Newt said. He stopped, cleared his throat and started reciting as if reading a mental encyclopaedia entry. “He is one of the most powerful wizards in the history of Macusa, a shapechanger who can take on the appearance of anyone he’s seen before. His natural form is aged nearly fifty, tall, white-haired. He was the childhood friend of Albus Dumbledore. The, ah.”

“Hero,” Percival supplied, acidically. “The hero of your story.”

“I needed a villain,” Newt said. He was twisting his hands around in his lap, head bent at an awkward angle to avoid looking at Percival. “It was a story in my head. A world I wanted to write about. Beautiful beasts and magic and people who were better, whose lives were better. Grindelwald was meant to be frightening because someone had to be. I never decided where he came from or how he met Albus. They were – I didn’t write it in the book, but I knew they loved each other before it all went wrong. It was a tragedy.”

Percival mouthed _loved?_ , too appalled for vocalisation. Queenie leaned in. “Were you ever going to write them reconciled and happy together?” she asked intently. “Is love the answer?”

“No,” Newt said. “Grindelwald doesn’t love anything enough to stop.”

“Worth trying,” Queenie said, shrugging. "What about weaknesses? Is he afraid of heights? Of spiders?”

“I don’t think so.” Newt frowned. “I didn’t write him in a scene with spiders.”

“How did you find out Grindelwald was here at all?” Tina interrupted. Percival gestured at the newspapers and Tina slid off the counter to go and look.

“The necklace,” Percival said. “The symbol is from a children’s story, in my world.” He glared at Newt. “Is there a reason he’s wearing that?”

“I don’t know,” Newt said tightly. “He’s not a character in my book any more, is he? He’s come to my town. I don’t know you either. I told a story and you happened to be in it.”

“Give me something to fight him with,” Percival said, quieter, less of an accusation and more a plea. “Give me a blind spot. Anything you can think of.”

Newt’s hands stilled for a moment. “Grindelwald is obsessed with cheating death.”

“One of the most powerful wizards alive,” Queenie said thoughtfully. “I bet he knows that? Maybe thinks about it a lot?”

Credence was not a mind-reader, but he had a sudden premonition about what she was going to say next, and Tina must have had the same suspicion because she said, “Queenie, _no_.”

“Grindelwald may be really something in his world,” Queenie continued, ignoring her, “but he’s not in his world any more, is he? Different rules and all. He’s not ready for that.” She grinned, wide and warm, like she’d just had the most wonderful idea. “And I’m pretty sure he’s never read _my_ book. Let's see what he makes of a mind-reader.”


	9. Chapter 9

“Queenie, no,” was what Tina had said. What she had meant by that was “Queenie, do not confront a power-hungry maniacal wizard obsessed with death”. What she had not meant was “Queenie, do not confront a power-hungry maniacal wizard obssessed with death _without me_ ”, yet here she was, being zipped into a blue evening dress with spangles down the front, her feet pinching in a pair of Queenie’s borrowed heels, preparing to attend a party where it was very likely that they would, in fact, be confronting a power-hungry maniacal wizard obsessed with death.

“We’re just gathering information,” Queenie soothed, doing complicated things to Tina’s hair. “He won’t even recognise us. And if anything happens, Percival will be right outside to come charging to the rescue. I betcha he’s really good at that.”

“Why are we _involved_ ,” Tina asked, because she really wanted to know.

“For starters, Credence and Percival are our friends,” Queenie said, ignoring Tina’s perfectly valid protest that they were actually complete strangers. “Second, we are going to con our way into a celebrity party wearing very pretty dresses, which will be fun.” Tina tried to protest again but then Queenie looked up, and in exactly the same light tone she said, “Third, this is where we live and Grindelwald will not think twice before destroying it.”

Tina stared at her. “How do you know that?”

“I saw him. In Percival’s head, I saw what he’s done.” Queenie’s fingers were steady and careful, settling a silver fascinator just so against Tina’s hair. “It’s not a story, Tina. He’s real. There are things he wants, and if something is in his way, he breaks it.”

“And you want to walk right into his path,” Tina whispered. “Queenie. I’ve never thought your life didn’t matter.”

“Just yours.” Queenie stepped back, her work done. “Either we’re both real, or neither of us are, and I can only be killed if I was real to start with. So which is it?”

From the corner of her eye, Tina could see them reflected in the dresser mirror: herself a dark and shimmering blur, contrasting against Queenie’s rose pink and honey gold. That was how they had always been. Everyone loved Queenie, and Queenie loved her, and that was enough, because it had to be. Tina had not known what to do to make it any other way. It had made so much sense – she had been written as the sullen one, the killjoy, Queenie’s shadow. She couldn’t change that.

If she hadn’t…if words on a page had not made her what she was, if _she_ had, that meant she had to figure out how to change for herself. She could not imagine how. It meant she had to live in a world that wasn’t hers, knowing that home was still there somewhere behind her – that the world she had left behind was not static but had moved on in her absence to something she would not quite recognise, should she ever return.

It meant everything counted. That hurt almost too much to think about, but losing her sister would hurt much, much more.

Queenie was wearing a backless dress in pink silk. Where she had acquired evening gowns at short notice was a mystery to Tina; possibly they just appeared when she was around, or maybe she had spent the past six months carefully amassing formalwear for emergency use. After all, up until recently, most of her emergencies had taken place in a ballroom. She was wearing five inch heels and candy pink lipstick and a tiara of little golden stars, and she was ready to fight a wizard.

“Don’t go to this party,” Tina said in a small voice. “Please don’t.”

“You know me,” Queenie said, almost apologetically. “I can’t keep away from a good party.”

*

The party taking place at all was extremely suspicious and thus far Percival’s only success had been talking the participants in Queenie’s plan into doing slightly less stupid things than they had originally planned. Newt was now going to spend his evening at a diner instead of waiting around at home like a sitting duck. He was doing so under protest because apparently it upset the magical talking mice when he left home. Percival refused to let that comment turn into a conversation and instead tried to persuade Queenie to bring weapons.

“Just a dagger,” he coaxed. “This small one would fit in your purse. Nobody would notice.”

“What would I do with a dagger?” Queenie asked, and Percival spared a moment to be sad about women’s education in her world. No lady at court in Macusa would ask a question like that. He demonstrated several effective moves, and while Queenie firmly refused to learn them, Tina happened to be in the room at the time and accepted the offered dagger on her behalf. So at least they were not walking into the party completely unarmed.

Credence, though. There, Percival had lost every argument, because Credence refused to have them at all – he would disappear every time Percival tried, and then Queenie would look sad and Newt would say something obvious and unhelpful like, “You’re upsetting him.” Percival was very much aware of that, and didn’t like it, and could see no way around it.

“Credence,” he had said, the night before the party, while he lay on the floor thinking of dark magic and Credence pretended to sleep in the bed. “Anywhere would be safer for you than here.”

He had heard the mattress creak as Credence rolled over and felt himself being looked at. It was quiet for a long time before Credence finally said, “No.” They lay in silence after that. There was nothing more to say.

So here they were now, lurking in the bushes outside Lockhart’s villa, having evicted the resident photographers with a few well-placed jinxes. Convincing Credence to stay close had been much easier than sending him away – and maybe there was something to consider in that, later, when this terrible event was over. Queenie had, as she assured them all she could, walked effortlessly without an invitation, and towed Tina with her. Percival had glimpsed them a couple of times since, at the enormous windows, and once on the balcony when Queenie had been drinking champagne and surrounded by admirers. She fitted here like a tailored glove.

Percival had seen Lockhart too. Lockhart’s handsome face, anyway; its real owner was undoubtedly dead, the corpse probably transfigured for easier concealment. Grindelwald was wearing a white suit and taking selfies with his guests. Percival had to ask Credence what ‘selfies’ were. “See, I’m useful,” Credence had said at that, a bitter little joke that made Percival turn around, suddenly infuriated at Credence’s huge personal blind spot – only to remember what inattention might cost them. He had settled for saying sharply, “Of course you’re useful”, and gritting his teeth at the dubious silence he was answered with.

The party flowed in and out of the house. There were a large number of attractive young men and women whose primary role in proceedings appeared to be splashing each other showily in the pool and doing shots on the deck chairs, while the guests in evening wear networked over champagne glasses. Percival had been to plenty of events like this one. Different clothes, different conversations, but the same in essentials. As a Graves, and Seraphina’s right hand man, he was invited to everything the court social season had to offer, and he was often obliged to go. There had been an awful few years when the two of them had been watched constantly, with the hope that they were going to get engaged overriding the known inflexibility of both their preferences. Seraphina had been aggravated enough in the end to take a mistress and the subject, thankfully, was dropped.

Not only had Percival not married Seraphina, he had never married at all, or wanted to. His relationships tended to be rather pushed to the background in favour of his duties to the queen, and as he generally chose lovers who would accept those terms easily (possibly because they believed he was actually in love with Seraphina) there had been no reason to break the pattern.

It was a bit depressing, if he thought about it. The superficiality was easier to spot from the outside. He recognised it now in the party at Lockhart’s house. The man was dead and his friends were laughing at the jokes of his murderer without even knowing it.

Percival wondered who would have known, if it had been him. As it would have been, if Credence had not been reading a story to his little sister.

Percival’s phone vibrated with Newt’s hourly check-in. This had been agreed to, Percival was sure, less because Newt was genuinely concerned for himself and more because he was worried about Queenie and Tina. The mutual assurances of survival were exchanged and Percival shoved the phone back into his pocket. He would miss these devices when he got home. If he got home.

“Credence,” he said.

“No,” Credence said, without looking away from the house.

Percival sighed. “I’m not asking you to leave this time.”

“Oh.” Credence glanced at him and looked away quickly. “Good.”

“You saved my life,” Percival said. “I don’t believe I ever got around to thanking you for that.”

This time Credence looked at him properly, eyes wide and stunned. “What?”

“You may not have intended to read me out of my world,” Percival said, “but your timing was impeccable. I would be dead now if it wasn’t for you.”

“I…kidnapped you,” Credence faltered. It took Percival a moment to recognise that he was being very politely corrected. Credence had a way of doing that, of forcing Percival to look twice. The phrasing made him think of Queenie’s exasperation: _you’re staying right here where I know you’re not being kidnapped._ Was that really what Credence thought had happened?

“Credence,” he said, “do you know how long a child studies in Macusa to master their wizardry? Seven years for the basics. Another five or ten if they choose to specialise.” At the age of twenty, Credence would be three years into those studies now if he lived in Macusa, perhaps one of the scholars who hung around the practice yards and flirted with the knights. “You’ve had no training at all for an ability you only recently discovered you have – I’d say you’re doing well.”

He could have added something caustic about Newt’s process of trial and error, but restrained himself. Newt, too, was untrained. Percival had to be fair about that, even if it left a sour taste in his mouth. Credence was still looking at him and Percival had the sudden strong feeling that his honesty was being measured.

“How long did you train?” Credence asked, at last.

Percival grinned. “Between the word and the sword, I don’t think I’ve ever stopped.”

He glanced back at the house, belatedly remembering what he was supposed to be paying attention to, and stiffened. The crowd of guests were moving in one direction, in towards the middle of the house. Something was happening. It had to be Grindelwald – Percival could only hope it wasn’t Queenie and Tina too.

“Enough watching,” he whispered to Credence. “Come with me.”

*

The room was dark, and the Mirror of Erised was shrouded under a sheet.

Chastity had been watching when Dumbledore opened the door to this forbidden room, the seemingly absent way he smoothed his fingers back and forth against the wood, and the part of her that noted the locations of creaking floorboards and loud hinges had turned the possibilities over until she was ready to steal Dumbledore’s goblet from where he had left it by his chair, rolling his finger prints across the same spot. It was a long shot, and didn’t work at first. She had experimented with different angles without success. At last she thought, _open, damn you, open for me,_ willing the wretched thing to give up, and rolled the goblet in one last infinity symbol. The door had creaked a little. It was open – and there was the Mirror, waiting.

She pulled off the sheet, and saw herself step forward in the dark.

The reflection was at first just that, a reflection, showing Chastity’s pale, frustrated face exactly as it was. She was trying to decide whether she felt more disappointed or relieved when the girl in the glass smiled at her – cool, cruel, confident. She looked older, in a severe dark dress that fit just right, hair a shining auburn helmet. She tipped back her head and Chastity saw a crown on her head, a sharp and glittering diadem of steel.

She sat, Chastity saw, in a chamber surrounded by doors, all of them wide open, leading into a hundred different worlds: cities both known and unknowable, skies where zeppelins floated or hovercraft zipped, all unsuspecting, at her mercy. A queen of boundless places.

Her hand stretched out without her conscious volition. The floor trembled beneath her feet and from the shadows of the room there broke free a darkness like a whirlwind, like nothing Chastity had ever seen. It was monstrous, and _living_. From the centre of it came a voice.

**Not again.**

And it attacked.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm afraid this is more of a scene than a chapter, and I can't guarantee there will be a full chapter written for this week either. I've come down with glandular fever, which led to me getting pneumonia, and everything is taking an extraordinary amount of effort right now. My posting schedule is probably going to be something of a mess for the next few weeks, depending on my ability to concentrate, but we're over halfway through the story now!

Chastity had always believed in demons. She had just thought they would be more subtle than this.

She should have run, of course, the second she saw it coming for her, even if running from a demon of darkness seemed rather doomed to failure. But for once her survival instinct had failed her. Chastity stood transfixed. The demon was a boiling black cloud, tendrils spreading outwards along the walls and ceiling like a void of a mouth opening up, and at the core of it Chastity saw something pale, like a bleached heart…

She was seized.

“ARIANA.” The word was a spell: the demon paused.

Albus Dumbledore had pushed Chastity behind him. He was a tall man, but the demon looming above his head made him look small. He looked up, and he did not look afraid; he looked sad. “Ariana,” he said again, more quietly, “not like this.”

The demon dropped towards him, fast, and stopped just above his face. Dumbledore flinched, but his voice was steady when he said, “That’s enough. I will not allow you to kill this girl, and you aren’t going to kill me, Ariana.”

It was the name that did the trick, spoken once, twice, three times – the demon retreated with grudging slowness, withdrawing the dark spill of itself.  **Make it stop,** said the voice, thin like a scream, and plunged past them into the hallway. The very edge of it brushed against Chastity’s skirt. Where it touched, the cloth rotted and frayed, and the skin underneath went cold.

This time, Chastity ran.

She could hear Dumbledore calling, but  _ her _ name was not a spell. She made for the nearest stairwell, grabbing at the wall to keep her balance on the worn stone of the steps. If she could make it out before the portcullis fell, maybe her headstart would be enough. Maybe. Probably not. She burst out the stairwell and nearly crashed straight into Dumbledore, who had got there first.  


“Magic,” he said apologetically, “has its uses, my dear. I understand you have had a shock, but there is no danger now.”

“Ariana?” Chastity echoed, viciously.

“I should confess, I suspected you would try a trick like that. You are an ingenious young woman. Had I thought that Ariana would react to you so violently, I would have been more careful.” When Chastity was silent, mentally weighing her odds on escaping past him or retreating back up the stairs, Dumbledore continued, “If you run, where will you go? Will you steal a horse? I do not believe you know how to ride. And then there is your sister, would you take her with you? Do you think you could convince her to go?”

“You’re not going to hurt _her_ ,” Chastity said, with more conviction than she felt. “She’s going to be your Chosen One, isn’t she? She’s going to save you, and your mad world, and your demon sister.”

“Ariana is not a demon,” Dumbledore said, very sharply. “That is a ghost of her. There is precious little of Ariana left at all.” He sighed, and said in gentler tones, “You don’t need to be afraid of me, Chastity. I am not your enemy. I will help you, if I can.”

People had promised Chastity help before. She had learned a long time ago it wasn’t coming.  _ Ariana, not like this,  _ he had said. What the hell did that mean? What had he intended to happen?

“Rooms have been set up for the two of you,” Dumbledore said, after it became clear Chastity had nothing to say to him. “Downstairs, the third door from the right, I expect you’ll find your way. In the morning, the queen has invited you to breakfast with her.”

He walked past her up the stairs to wherever it was he slept, if wizards did sleep, which Chastity did not feel inclined to take on faith. She waited until the sound of his footsteps faded out of earshot  and another five minutes stewing in angry indecision before she went to find her room. It was late, and dark, but the castle corridors were lit with flaming torches that looked like a nightmarish fire hazard until you realised they were not emitting heat, only light. Magic fire. Magic mirrors. Chastity squinted suspiciously as she passed the statue of a woman in  spiky  armour, waiting for it to step off its pedestal and give her directions or something.  When she heard a whisper of “Over here,” she assumed the worst – but then Modesty poked her head out from behind the statue and beckoned. 

Frowning, Chastity came over. “ Do you really think people won’t notice us,” she said doubtfully, “if we stand behind a statue?”

“ _Shhh_ ,” Modesty hissed. “He didn’t notice me when I followed him here.”

Chastity eyed her. “I thought he was your wonderful new mentor.”

“He is,” Modesty said, with unshaken confidence. “But he’s telling a lot of lies. Mentors do that. And something really bad must have happened to his sister. I want to know what’s going on.”

She didn’t ask Chastity to help; she knew better than to expect that from her. Modesty would find out what Dumbledore was hiding on her own if she had to, and Chastity would find a way home on her own if she had to, but it would be easier if they worked together. Well, it might be. Chastity wouldn’t know. It had been so long since they were on the same side.

“Maybe Queen Seraphina will tell us something,” Chastity said.

Modesty beamed. “ She’s amazing. I can’t wait to meet her. But she’s probably going to lie a lot too, that’s political. There’s a library in the castle, somewhere – I can look for it after breakfast. There might be something about Ariana there.”

“Okay. Good night, Modesty.”

“Good night.” Modesty slipped out from behind the statue, disappearing into her room across the corridor without a sound.

It was true: Dumbledore would probably protect her, for now. Modesty was so much more useful to him than Chastity. Bu t she had not answered the question:  would Chastity leave her sister behind, if she had her chance at escape?

She thought she might. She thought that Albus Dumbledore might have done that too.


	11. Chapter 11

Since arriving at Gilderoy Lockhart’s house, Tina had so far:

  1. got through the door. This had absolutely nothing to do with her own powers of persuasion, because she didn’t have any. Queenie, on the other hand, had more than enough for two, and a Queenie in high heels and an evening dress, standing right on the edge of a party, was an unstoppable force. The security at the door not only let her in without question, they offered helping hands up the front stairs, laughed at her jokes, and missed Tina’s presence altogether.
  2. failed to start any useful conversations, largely because Tina had no idea what she was supposed to be talking about. “Hello, do you think your host has been murdered and replaced by a wizard from another world? Asking for a friend,” was not much of an icebreaker.
  3. failed to understand most of the conversations she overheard. Was Westeros a real country, possibly neighbouring Westworld? Who knew? Not Tina.
  4. eaten nine cocktail sausages and a lot of brie.
  5. committed larceny.



She did not know why she had stolen the mirror, only that she had seen it sitting on a shelf – small and silver, in the shape of a lightning bolt, a little expensive thing among many little expensive things – and some part of her had gone,  _no. I don’t think so._ When it came to the distribution of gifts, Queenie had charm and Tina had doubt. So the mirror had disappeared into her purse, where it clinked gently against Percival’s dagger. 

It was a well-timed theft: the chime of a champagne flute being tapped had drawn everyone’s attention inward, to where Lockhart stood halfway up the staircase. He was holding his glass aloft, posing like a magazine cover as he waited for his guests to assemble around him. Tina ended up on the inner edge of the crowd, Queenie’s fingernails digging into her arm.

“Friends,” Lockhart said. The chandelier overhead was a spotlight on his perfect waves of golden hair, on his shining teeth. “Romans, countrymen! This is a last hurrah. You’re the first to hear the big announcement: I’m giving up show business.”

Everyone was staring avidly up at Lockhart, drinking gossip direct from the source, and more than a few were taking discreet photos on their phones. Queenie breathed, “Oh, he’s good.” Her fingers were still wrapped too tight around Tina’s wrist.

“I know. I know. It’s a shock,” Lockhart said, waving his free hand in what was presumably intended as a gesture of modesty. It looked more like he was conducting the oohs and ahhs of his audience. “But the time has come, the walrus said! To try something _new_. To start a _journey_.” He winked. “Watch this space. Raise your glasses, people, to _beginnings!_ ”

Everyone drank to the toast. Queenie said, very softly, “We’re getting out of here.”

*

“It looks like a speech,” Percival said dubiously, risking another look through the window. He squinted at Credence in the dark. “Why would he be giving a speech?”

“Queenie will know,” Credence said. He was further back in the shadows, crouching behind an ornate water feature. If someone ruined this plan by being spotted, he was not going to let it be him.

Percival considered, eyebrows drawn into a heavy frown, before finally deciding, “It’s an opportunity. He’s distracted. I’m going to look inside.”

This, Credence was sure, was what Percival had wanted to do all along, and he would have found a suitable excuse no matter what happened, but at least he was not trying to insist that he go alone, so Credence fell in behind him without argument. There was an alley behind the house for garbage collection, and Percival climbed onto the dumpster to see if he could get a window open. Credence felt this tipped over the line into criminal activity, and wondered if that mattered, under the circumstances. He didn’t feel particularly guilty.

Credence stopped and went over that again. He _didn’t_ feel guilty, and when was the last time that had been true?

Percival jumped off the dumpster. He landed easily, like a big cat. “Found one,” he said, satisfied. “Here, I’ll give you a boost.” He held out his cupped hands and there was an intensely awkward moment, at least on Credence’s side, as he tried to work out where to put his own hands to take Percival up on the offer. He ended up holding on too tight to Percival’s shoulder for balance as he scrambled gracelessly onto the dumpster. He only noticed that half of the lid was up when he overbalanced and nearly toppled through the open side. It was fortunate he didn't - there was a minefield of broken glass in there. Percival, who had jumped up effortlessly, grabbed at Credence to steady him and reached over to shut the lid.

“Credence, look,” he said, attention sharpening. The bin was full of frames. Credence thought at first they were the frames of paintings, but there was so much glass. “Mirrors,” Percival said thoughtfully. “He’s destroyed all the mirrors in the house. I wonder why he had to do that.”

“Would they show him as he really is?”

“I don’t know,” Percival admitted. “Hm. Let’s get this window open.”

He did not use magic, not wanting to draw Grindelwald’s notice. Percival was strong and Credence was sneaky, and between them they got the window open without fuss. It led into what turned out to be an ensuite bathroom. Percival eyed the sleek steel fixtures like he might be prepared to admit they were civilised. Credence looked at the bath tub, which was large enough to be a boat, and at the shower, which was large enough to be a bathroom, and then at the space on the wall where an enormous mirror had obviously once hung. In its place were a cluster of Post-It notes. Credence went closer to read them. There were a lot of random quotes written in red pen and notes in black that said things like _smile award,_ _TWEETS_ and _owe it all to the fans_.

He heard Percival swear again and followed him out into the bedroom. This was less a room than a suite, with a vast bed on a sort of pedestal and a walk-in wardrobe off to one side that looked like a very exclusive men’s fashion store where all the clothes just happened to be in the same size. Percival was leaning over one of the bedside tables, holding something small but instantly recognisable. It was a copy of  _Silvertongue._

This, too, was filled with notes. Credence looked over Percival’s shoulder as he leafed through the book, reading the commentary Grindelwald had left behind. In the first few chapters he seemed to be constructing a timeline, judging how much he could trust what he was reading. On the page where Percival died – Credence’s stomach turned over when he realised that was what he was looking at – the note simply said  _timing?_ Percival looked at that for a long moment before turning to the next marked passage, which was a scene with Albus Dumbledore and Seraphina Picquery. The line at the top of the page read,  _“This is a battle like any other, Majesty. My advice is the same as it would be with any other adversary: to keep your friends close and take your opportunities as they come.”_ Beside it, Grindelwald had written _LIAR._

Percival closed the book and shoved it into his pocket. “Better to keep moving,” he said, too evenly. “We may not have long.”

The bedroom opened into a densely carpeted hallway. There were two opulent guest rooms, an office, and beyond that the stairs. The sounds of the party made Credence flinch. His only experience with parties were the church fundraisers, where he’d worn a drab black suit a size too small and handed around plates of food alongside Chastity. She would be able to handle this, he was sure. Chastity was ice when she wanted to be; nothing could touch her, not that the girls at school hadn’t tried. Credence’s skin was too thin. It didn’t get tougher with time, only bled more. He looked down at himself in his crumpled clothes, colourless from years of wash and wear, and knew exactly what these people would make of him. The idea of being seen by them shouldn’t matter when he knew what was at stake, but it made him freeze just the same.

“What’s wrong?” Percival asked, pausing.

“Can you make us invisible again?” Credence asked.

“I don’t know what wards are in the house. It wouldn’t be safe. Besides, we won’t be here much longer. I’m going to see that all is well with the ladies and then we’ll leave. I might risk the invisibility spell for the way back, to avoid us being followed.” 

“Oh.” Credence rubbed at his arms. “Right. Maybe this time, you could make it permanent.”

It was a joke of sorts, but also not, and that was the part Percival seemed to hear. He looked at Credence with an odd expression. It was almost sad. “Credence,” he said. “You’re worth seeing. Do you truly not know that?”

Kind, Credence thought, he’s being kind to me, while his delusional heart tripped over itself. Percival was so easy to romanticise. He was a knight, honourable as a storybook, handsome as a daydream; he was the first good thing to happen to Credence in what felt like lifetimes, and Credence  _understood_ that he didn’t get to keep him. But Percival was still looking at him, searchingly, as if he did not want to look away, and Credence was immobilised under that gaze, so seen he felt raw.

Percival moved closer to him, feet silent on the carpet. He lifted a hand and rested it very lightly against the back of Credence’s neck, not so much pressure as presence. Credence was, somehow, still breathing, but he was beginning to feel light-headed. 

Percival was the one who leaned forward, but Credence leaned in to meet him. Their mouths brushed, a kiss that was gentle and dry and over almost before it began.

“Credence,” Percival said again. His hand tightened briefly on Credence’s neck and then he let go. “Wait for me. I won’t be long.”

All Credence could do was nod. If Percival had asked it of him right then, he might have promised to never move again.

*

Queenie had wanted to leave as soon as she arrived; it had taken minutes for her to find what she was looking for, and it was even worse than she’d thought.

Every mind felt different. Some minds were more different than others. Tina was of course best-known, best-loved, but her mind was not like the others in this world, and Percival’s was different again. It was a difference that Queenie could not quite describe, even to herself – she would have said it was like the distinction between artists painting the same scene, only that veered too close to real fears for comfort. Having met Percival, Queenie expected to pick out the same tone in another mind, but it wasn’t there. Her first thought was that Percival must be wrong; her second thought was that perhaps Lockhart was late to his own party, so she looked around for him, brushing automatically through the minds around her. She saw him, and what she felt was…cold. It was as if she had been expecting to touch skin and put a hand on scales instead.

Wherever that mind came from, it wasn’t the same place as Percival, and it was not a place Queenie  _ever_ wanted to go.

He acted the role of Lockhart with phenomenal skill. He had the right tone, the right way of moving, he had the right airy laugh. He dropped the right references. Queenie couldn’t help admiring the artistry even as it made her want very much to run away. She could not bring herself to go near him, though it would take physical touch to get more off him than a sense of his mood, but she could not leave yet either, because he was pleased. It was a feeling that was simultaneously anticipatory and satisfied, and all Queenie was certain of was that she didn’t want him to feel that.

After his speech – which was clever, damn it, he had just excused any strangeness in his behaviour in exactly the way that Gilderoy Lockhart have done himself – that sense of anticipation grew stronger, and Queenie snapped. She was not going to stay any longer. For one thing, having Tina in close proximity to those thoughts was making her feel nauseous. For another, whatever was going to happen was going to happen soon, and Queenie didn’t want to be there when it did.

A flare of abruptly changing mood hooked her attention. It was Credence, not where she had thought he would be – was he in the  _house_ ? And Percival was with him, audible on the same rise of sudden emotion. Queenie tried to concentrate. They were close…above her? 

“Queenie,” Tina hissed. “Where is he?”

She was disoriented for a second, wondering how Tina had figured out Credence was here. Then it clicked. Grindelwald was nowhere in sight. 

And oh, he was  _delighted_ with himself.


	12. Chapter 12

Instructed to wait, Credence waited. He was nothing if not obedient, after all.

Minutes passed. Someone laughed loudly below and a door slammed, making Credence jump violently. He looked around for a hiding place and took refuge in an alcove off the hall, because this was the sort of house that had alcoves. The space was already occupied with a sculpture that looked very much like Gilderoy Lockhart – made in gold, wearing a cape – but Credence managed to squeeze into a corner where he would not be immediately visible to whoever entered the hallway. People moved around at parties, didn’t they? What if guests decided to come upstairs to do drugs or have an orgy, or any of the other things his mother was utterly confident happened at all parties where she was not present to personally supervise?

Though come to think of it, how _did_ she know what happened at parties? She didn’t go to any, only the church fundraisers and the dour fortnightly dinners with her most loyal followers. Because that was what they were – followers, not friends. Credence could see the difference now. There were people who believed in Mary-Lou, who saw her as their leader, but Credence did not think there was anyone who was ever truly happy to see her, least of all her children. She was very alone. Maybe she even wanted to be.

Credence didn’t. Nebulous as so many of his dreams were, he knew this: he did not want to be alone. He wanted to live with people who were happier for his being there, who would smile at him when he came home, who would care if he had a bad day. He wanted to learn to cook and have friends to cook for. He wanted to have a home he could share, where he would open all the windows and let the sunlight in. Credence did not know how to go about getting those things, but he knew he _wanted_ them, and that was new and wonderful enough to start with.

He could get a job, find an apartment. Maybe, if he got Modesty back – _when_ he got her back – he could give her a cat. She had always wanted one. Mary-Lou hated them. Maybe – and Credence was aware he was going out on a limb here, spinning his wishes a bit too thin – Chastity would choose to live with them too. She would get a job more easily than Credence, being good with numbers was a skill that travelled well.

Credence could just about imagine that life. A little table where Chastity could sit with her laptop and account books, and a couch where Modesty could read anything she wanted. Adding Percival to the mix felt like adding another tier to a house of cards, inviting the whole thing to fall down, but he could not resist. Percival teaching Modesty to throw daggers, like he’d wanted to show Queenie and Tina. She would love that. Percival listing increasingly complicated coffee orders at Starbucks. Percival looking up when Credence walked into the room, smiling more with his eyes than his mouth.

The house of cards wobbled. Chastity didn’t know Credence was gay – even Modesty didn’t know. _Credence_ had done his best not to know. He could not predict what they would think, when they found out. They had all grown up with the same sermons. His sisters might want nothing to do with him, if they knew. And Percival, well, a kiss was one thing. Credence knew perfectly well that Percival did not want to stay in this world. Anything he did would be passing time until they figured out how to send him home.

Credence pressed his hands over his face, and nearly knocked the statue off its pedestal. He’d just got it steady when he heard a voice saying his name.

Relieved, Credence emerged. Percival was coming down the hallway, looking much more relaxed than when he had left – he was almost strolling, hands in his pockets. He grinned at Credence. “There you are,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“Queenie’s okay then?” Credence asked.

There was a very slight pause before Percival said, “Yes, it’s all good.”

People hesitated for all sorts of reasons. Credence knew that. His fingers curled in on themselves just the same. Percival was not a man who hesitated much. “What about Tina?”

“You don’t need to worry,” Percival said, and Credence’s hands curled in tight enough to feel the press of fingernails against his palms. Percival’s eyes flicked down, catching the motion. He said, “I’ll tell you the rest once we’re outside. This isn’t a good place to stop and chat.”

Credence flushed. “Sorry.”

Percival headed on down the hall. Credence trailed after him. He could not say what exactly he had been expecting when Percival returned, but the anticlimactic briskness brought a weight into his stomach that he did not want to acknowledge. Percival was right. They needed to get out of this place. Credence was being ridiculous.

He expected Percival to head for the bedroom, to get out the same way that they had come in, but instead he detoured towards the office next door. The hot night had taken a stormy turn. A breeze that smelled of rain was blowing through the open windows, sending the thin white balcony curtains billowing. Credence rubbed his bare arms.

“What are we looking for?” he asked.

Percival gestured at the balcony. “We’re leaving, Credence.”

“But…there’s no way to the ground. Wouldn’t it be easier…”

Percival raised his eyebrows and wiggled his fingers in the air. “That’s what magic is for.”

Credence drew a breath, opened his mouth, and closed it again. “I forgot,” he said.

The man who was not Percival stood between him and the door. He had ushered Credence in ahead of him; that made sense now. Credence took another breath. Escape was out. Delay, then. “Maybe I should check the laptop,” he said, “before we leave. Just in case.”

“I don’t think Grindelwald will have written down his masterplan,” said Gellert Grindelwald, twisting Percival’s mouth into a smile. Credence wanted to be sick.

“There might be something useful,” he said. Breathe in, out. “Give me a minute.”

“I got him wrong, didn’t I?” The face stayed the same, but the mask dropped. “Queenie and Tina, were those code words? Clever. I _was_ going to play nicely, you would have enjoyed it. There would have been courtship. The real Percival, he’s as ruthless in his way as I am in mine, you know. He left you all alone, Credence.”

Breathe in. Breathe out. “You killed him.”

Grindelwald rolled Percival’s eyes. “No, Credence, I have not killed your precious Percival. He is the queen’s creature and quite useless to me, but _you_. You’re different.” He came closer, each step slow and deliberate, backing Credence further into the room. “Why should we be enemies? What have I done to you? It was you who brought me here, Credence – I could have hurt you then. Did I?”

Credence had been herded onto the balcony. There was nowhere to go, without magic. “I don’t believe you,” he said. “I don’t believe he’s alive. Prove it to me.”

“He left you alone,” Grindelwald said again. “To love is to be abandoned, Credence. Believe me. You give a part of yourself away and you will never get it back. You know already that Percival will leave you, but I can change that. I can be the captor, the one he hates, and you will be the victim, the one he protects. He can be yours, Credence, if we work together. In time, you will be so powerful you won’t have to pretend any more. He will choose to serve at your side.”

Credence could not get enough air. The first raindrops of the oncoming storm blew in against his neck. He wanted to say, _no, no, I don’t want that,_ but the words would not come out of his mouth, as if in some part of himself, he knew they were not true. They sat in his throat, instead, choking him.

“Imagine it,” Grindelwald said gently. “The two of us, conquerors, kings, and Percival Graves kneeling willingly at your feet.”

Through the wild ripple of curtains, Credence saw movement. Grindelwald turned around very fast, but not quite fast enough to avoid getting hit in the head with a life-size bust of Gilderoy Lockhart. He went down like a felled tree. Tina raised the bust to hit him again. “I hate him,” she announced.

Queenie darted past her to seize Credence’s arm. “Hey, honey! Lousy party. Let’s hustle.”

He dug in his heels. “No, Percival, he’s here somewhere – he has to be, he could be hurt…”

“I’ve looked. Can’t find him.” Queenie was stronger than she looked; Credence started moving because it was that or be bodily hauled to the door. “You’re the one Grindelwald really wants, he’ll keep Percival alive if it means getting to you, but right now he’s got too many hostages to choose from and we really, really need to not be here when he wakes up.”

Tina dropped the bust and hurried after them. “Is it too soon to say this was a _terrible idea_?”

“Shut up, Tina!” Queenie trilled, taking the stairs two at a time. She staggered suddenly, groping at the bannister, and looked over her shoulder with wide eyes. “He’s awake. Run.”

A guttural shout sounded behind them and a crack like a lightning strike illuminated the hallway with a flash of poison green. Cries of surprise and alarm rose from the guests milling below. Credence had a disorienting flashback to fifteen minutes ago, when the idea of being seen by these glittering people was enough to make him freeze up. It turned out it was much easier not to care how stupid you looked when you were being pursued by a murderer.

“You have to evacuate!” he shouted, skidding down the steps. “Fire! Emergency! 911!”

A few guests actually listened, heading for the doors. Most of them stared at him in bewilderment. He heard tittering, and it didn’t matter; what mattered was the voice at the top of the stairs drawling, “At least have a drink before you go.” The bloody side of Grindelwald’s head had been smoothed over with Lockhart’s gleaming golden hair. He raised a hand and whipped it down – Credence heard another deafening crack, and Queenie cried out, crumpling.

“Not a code, then,” Grindelwald said. “Ah, well. Everyone makes mistakes.”

This time the guests fled, a screaming surge for the exits. It barely registered. Credence dropped to his knees next to Queenie, patting her down with trembling hands as he looked for the injury. There was blood soaking through the front of her dress. Tina looked down at her sister, then up at Grindelwald. She reached into her purse and brought out a dagger.

“Did Percival give you that?” Grindelwald asked, strolling down the stairs. “I think he meant for you to stab me in the back, but never mind, it looks very sharp. I’ll tell him you tried.”

Queenie’s eyes were glazed, half-shut, looking up at Credence without seeing him. He scrabbled around for something, anything, to wad against the bloody patch of her dress, but the tablecloth that came to hand was too thin to be any use.

“Mirror, mirror,” she breathed. “Oh, oh, she’s so sad. It’s not fair, it’s not fair.”

“Queenie?” Credence knew how to clean a grazed knee and bandage a belted hand, but this was curses, life and death, and he was helpless.

Queenie shivered, turning her head away. “Make it stop.”

Grindelwald raised his hand again. Tina pulled back her arm to throw the dagger. When the shaking started, Credence thought it was the onset of a panic attack, but then the nearest light fitting fell to the floor with a crash. Cracks split through the ceiling. Another light fitting tumbled to the floor, narrowly avoiding Tina’s head. Grindelwald shouted something, a word drowned out by the groan of the quaking house.

Credence blinked. Grindelwald was gone, and the ceiling began to cave in.

*

When Percival came to, he was cold, the kind of cold that had seeped in deep enough to make his bones unbearably heavy. His brain disapproved of that, and it took several sluggish minutes to reach the reason why: it should be summer. He opened his eyes to the soft white fall of snow.

“Pretty,” said a voice above him, “isn’t it?”

Grindelwald had discarded both Lockhart and Lockhart’s clothes. He was himself again, in a heavy black coat with ornate buckles. They were in what looked at first like a copse of trees, stark black trunks jutting through the snow, but between the bare branches Percival could see brick walls and overheard was a strip of flickering light. He tried turning his head. It hurt very much, and what he saw did not comfort him in the least. There was a mirror, full-length and free-standing, reflecting the inexplicable woodland, and in that reflection a dark cloud roiled furiously where Grindelwald ought to be.

“She’s trying to get to me,” Grindelwald remarked. He did not sound concerned, but there was a kind of clinical admiration in his voice. “It keeps breaking the mirrors. It brought down the house. Ariana always was a persistent little brat.”

Percival wanted to ask what the fuck he was talking about. He refused to do so, because that would dignify Grindelwald with an acknowledgement of his existence, and Percival was also not sure he could speak without his teeth chattering. There were splashes of red in the snow around him. They were probably blood. Probably his blood. He remembered a door and thinking, _I should check what’s through there,_ and beyond the door there was a stair – and after that, an exchange of curses, vicious and desperate. Not quite vicious enough, as it turned out.

“What a dreadful host I am,” Grindelwald said, tearing his eyes away from the mirror and flipping back his coat to perch neatly on the trunk of a fallen tree. “I should explain what’s happening. It’s rather unique, as you may have noticed. You can thank dear Ariana again for that. She may not be able to reach me, but her attempts are damaging the space between our worlds. You can think of it along the lines of a fist repeatedly connecting with a door. The hand will bleed, but eventually the cracks will show.” He plucked a twig and held it aloft, studying it with a cool, curious eye. “I’m not sure where all the trees are coming from. The next world over, perhaps.”

Ariana. Ariana _Dumbledore_? “She’s dead,” Percival croaked, before he could stop himself.

“It hasn’t stopped her yet,” Grindelwald said. “I bear some responsibility for that. As do her brothers, but of course I am the one she chose to blame.” As if it was a natural continuation, he added, “The boy loves you, and more importantly, is loyal to you. The two are a rarer conjunction than you might think. And so you will live, if he comes for you. It’s in his hands now. Let’s hope he doesn’t dawdle.”

“Fuck that,” Percival spat. “My blood is on your hands. It’s all on your hands.”

He had, somehow, hit a nerve – Grindelwald’s eyes flared with a wild kind of surprise, quickly giving way to a sheen of malice. Behind him, the mirror went black, engulfed by the relentless fury of a dead girl. Percival thought he heard the sound of the collision, but that might have just been the pounding in his head. His vision was beginning to grey out again. He could still hear Grindelwald talking.

“I might let you die, eventually, but don’t think of it as an escape. Death will be mine to command, Sir Percival. There is no escaping that.”


	13. Chapter 13

Chastity knew how to be respectable. She had learned the art of it from Mary-Lou who, for all her fiery righteousness in the pulpit, knew very well how far she could push the old men who donated generously to the church – men like Mr Shaw, who had to be placated with traditional values and demurely lowered eyes, and if Mary-Lou could not bring herself to fulfill the 1950s fantasy for them every time, it was all right, because she had a little girl who could do it even better. Pinches on the cheek. Pinches elsewhere, when Chastity grew a little older and breasts started showing under her shapeless blouses. It could be endured. Bitterness was the commonality between mother and daughter. Mary-Lou did not hit Chastity. She did not have to. Chastity had learned how to wear her bruises on the inside of her skin, where they were as good as invisible.

Respectability, though, was an untrustworthy patchwork of a garment. Not enough of the pieces fit in Macusa, where apparently it was normal to walk around in garishly coloured robes and levitate breakfast dishes across the table. It was not possible to be a good God-fearing girl in a place where they did not have gods at all. Chastity did not know what expectations to conform to, and it left her in a permanent state of silently simmering rage. She sat stiffly at the table, eating a slice of dry toast, the least magical foodstuff available.

Modesty, of course, wanted to try everything, even the ominously pink poached eggs (what horrific kind of cookery did it take to turn eggs pink? Did they come from mutant magic birds? Chastity did not intend to find out). She was also holding a conversation across the table with Albus Dumbledore that honestly was more of an inquisition, a rapid-fire Q&A on every detail about daily life in Macusa that Modesty could think of. In this way Chastity learned a great deal about the routines of the court – how it was divided largely between the knights and the scholars and that well-dressed third party, the hangers-on; how the queen decamped every summer to the green serenity of the south, pursued by a trail of copycat courtiers whose very active social lives made the south much less serene; how fortunes had been made in the last war, waged when the queen was a young woman, and there were those (Dumbledore did not say so directly, but the Barebone girls understood money, they didn’t need these things spelled out) who had high hopes for Grindelwald.

So in many ways the same principles applied in both worlds. The dance of the rich and the would-be rich, as reliable as gravity and oxygen. Except Chastity did not have steps of her own here, she could only clumsily feel her way about, and the only invisibility to be had was a cloak in Dumbledore’s keeping.

Something gnawed its way up through Chastity’s internal strata of frustration and resentment to make itself heard: she _wanted._ All those worlds she had seen in the Mirror, were they real too? Chastity thought of the Styrofoam solar system that had hung from the ceiling of her science class; was it a question of planets, was her Earth out there somewhere in the night sky? Or was it more sideways than that, an accordian fold of paper realities that could be punched through by the right voice? Credence’s voice, apparently. Or Ariana’s…

She looked across the table at Dumbledore. Had he hated his sister for that special, special voice?

He did not look like the sort of man who hated anyone at present, with half-moon spectacles sliding to the tip of his nose and a bit of butter on his chin. He looked like someone’s father, a mild smiling face to be seen through a car window at the morning drop-off at school. None of it softened Chastity. There was a reason they were alone at their table – courtiers passing by would stop for a few polite words, but to actually sit evidently required an invitation Dumbledore did not extend. He just smiled amiably and waited for them to go away.

Chastity noticed first when the tremors started. Her cutlery was lined up neatly on her plate, unused, so when it began to clatter together her assumption was that magic was imminent – all the breakfast things would disappear in a puff of smoke. What happened next instead was Modesty’s goblet tipping over. It caught on the edge of the butter dish and broke, a little spontaneous fountain of glass shards. Dumbledore glanced at it sharply and stood, just as the whole room  _lurched._

Everything went white. Chastity was somewhere else – a wood, trees half buried in snowfall. There was a body on the ground, very still, and a man in a dark coat standing over it. Chastity did not move, but the man looked up as suddenly as if she had. His eyes had a yellow gleam, like a tiger, wide with speculative surprise.

Chastity said, “Grindelwald.” It was a guess, but Chastity was a good guesser.

“My lady,” Grindelwald purred, “you have me at a disadvantage.”

“Good,” Chastity said, and she was in the banquet hall again, on her feet amidst the tumbled tables and shattered crockery. Her face was cold and her heart was beating very fast.

What she felt, she was very nearly sure, was hope.

*

The doors banged open and in came the queen. There was a helmet under her arm, a broadsword at her hip and a procession of knights at her heels. The panic died down upon her arrival – there were even bows as people collected themselves, but Seraphina Picquery swept on without pause until she reached Albus and then said, tersely, “This is what you meant? Speak plainer next time.”

Modesty was still dazed. When the quake went through, she’d blinked and been somewhere else: a hilltop above the sea, surrounded by apple trees and ruined walls. There had been children’s voices nearby, not quite close enough to pick out what they were saying, and Modesty had had time to draw in a shocked breath of warm salty air before she was in the banquet hall again, the floor shuddering to a standstill beneath her feet. A hand on her shoulder steadied her; Modesty looked up and recognised the knight at her side as the leader of the troop who had found her in the woods.

“I apologise, your Majesty,” Albus said, his voice thin, “but I cannot say I foresaw that.” He looked badly shaken, in need of steadying himself.

Seraphina looked to the knight at Modesty’s side. “Minerva, take a troop into the town and see how much damage we’re dealing with. I’ll come down myself once I’ve settled things here.”

Minerva was gone almost before the queen finished speaking, briskly calling out names. Seraphina looked around the hall, taking in the wreckage. The walls seemed solid enough. This castle had too many enchantments in its foundations to fall easily. The queen lifted her hand, turning the tables back onto their legs; a snap of her fingers banished the broken glass and splintered plates.

“At least the harm is easily repaired,” Albus began, recovering himself.

“You think so?” Seraphina said grimly. “Look outside.”

Modesty ran ahead to the open doors. Bursting through the cobbled ground of the courtyard were black trees, snow dripping off their bare branches to melt in puddles. Albus stared at them, visibly appalled. He made a violent gesture towards the unwelcome wood, but if it was meant to be magical, it did not have the desired effect. Nothing happened.  


“You see,” Seraphina said.

Albus did not appear to hear her. His hand fell limply to his side. Modesty wanted to go down among the trees, but when she moved, Albus caught her wrist in a very firm grip. 

“It’s time,” he whispered. “She’s done it at last.”

“What do you mean?” Seraphina glared at him. “What has this monster done?”

“Not a monster, my queen. A ghost.”

*

Chastity walked out of the hall as if in a dream.  She was moving on instinct – an instinct that was proved correct. The door, when she found it, was hanging off twisted hinges, but the Mirror stood undamaged. Chastity stepped up to it.  Her crueller self stood there, a thin smile curling the corners of her mouth. Chastity felt the same smile on her face.  She reached out both hands, pressing her palms to the glass. Her reflection did the same, and Chastity felt a phantom pressure.

A second tremor went through the castle, an aftershock. Chastity’s vision gave way to the cold white wood. It was inside the mirror, like looking through a window. Chastity stepped back warily, but her heart leaped. The body had been hauled out of sight, the drag marks making a path in the snow, and the man in the dark coat stood with green fire cupped between his palms. When he saw Chastity, he pressed his hands together and the fire went out.

“Miss Barebone,” he said, “I believe that’s right?”

She did not answer him. He nodded, as if this was in itself an answer, and continued. “The Mirror is a marvel, but confusing. I saw too much. I thought – there were three children, and when I met Credence, I thought it would be he who helped me. I saw such wonders for us, such conquest. But he does not have the fire in him.  He’s nothing more than a frightened boy. It’s you, isn’t it? The one I need. The one like me.”

_He’s calling me Miss Barebone because he doesn’t know my name_ . “How are you like me?”

Grindelwald smiled. It reminded Chastity of the smile she had shared with her mirror self. “You wear masks easy as breathing. You become whatever they want to see, and underneath, you’re only ever waiting your chance. There are empires in you, Miss Barebone. Do you want to claim them?”

Chastity  smiled back at him, a slash of lips and teeth . “What do you think?”

Grindelwald leaned close to the glass, and breathed, “We’ll start by robbing Albus Dumbledore.”

 


	14. Chapter 14

It seemed to be a pattern, now, that Credence left wreckage in his wake. This time it was bad enough to make the national news. 

He sat numbly in the hospital waiting room, staring up at the television on the wall. It had been playing a muted loop of t he day’s news stories for the past four hours; Credence had watched Gilderoy Lockhart’s house collapse over and over again. Each time he saw Queenie’s body carried out of the rubble, the nauseous roil of guilt made him light-headed. Credence himself was there in the background: white-faced, plaster dust in his hair, her blood all over his hands.

Newt had gone with  Queenie in the ambulance. It had to be him; he was the one with the credit card.  He had seemed so vague to Credence before, a man accustomed to living very much in his own world, but he was the only one  even  remotely holding it together now. He had given Credence his  car  keys, so that Credence could drive Tina to the hospital, and when they arrived he was waiting for them. Queenie, he explained,  had lost a lot of blood  and was in surgery. There had been questions about the nature of her injuries,  which had left the doctors very confused,  but it turned out that having a building collapse on you covered a great many sins. 

Possibly Newt should not have said that last part out loud.  It made  Tina  crumple into tears, the ugly wrenching kind that had people sitting around them looking tactfully in other directions, and Credence  could hardly hear her over the ringing in his ears. He dropped onto a seat because it was that or fall onto the floor.  Newt stood there awkwardly in front of them, unsure what he had done wrong –  eventually he decided this was a problem that could be fixed with tea and fetched two waxed paper cups. It was so much what Queenie would do that Credence’s throat swelled up with unshed tears and he couldn’t drink, only sat helplessly with the cup going cold between his hands.  He did not have the right to cry.

He watched the television instead. A blonde reporter was standing in front of the ruin, talking animatedly  into the camera .  People in suits sat on a couch in a studio, nodding seriously at whatever she was saying. A banner running along the bottom of the screen told Credence that a bomb disposal crew was looking through the rubble.

“It wasn’t a bomb,” Newt said quietly, making Credence jump.

“It wasn’t Grindelwald either,” Credence said. He had repeatedly replayed the scene inside the house, right before it had all quite literally fallen apart, and this was one of the few things he was sure of. Grindelwald had, in that moment, been as much under attack as the rest of them were.

“I know.” Newt sounded wretched. “It was Ariana. It must have been.”

Credence turned  toward him. He felt thick and slow,  as if he was inside one of those nightmares where, no matter how far you ran, you always ended up back at the same place . “What?”

Newt twisted his hands and talked very fast, staring fixedly at the ground. “ I told you. Grindelwald is obsessed with death. She – Ariana . Albus Dumbledore’s sister . She’s why. It’s because of her he knows that it can be done. Because they almost did it, he and Albus, they almost had mastery of Death, only it went wrong. The destruction. What happens wherever Grindelwald goes, it’s her,  she’s only ever trying to destroy him but he was using her to destroy the kingdom. ”

Credence gazed at him with growing horror. “You never told us that.”

“She was in the book,” Newt said helplessly. “I wrote her. She wasn’t _here_."  


On the  screen above them , the house collapsed yet again  in dreadful silence . “I think she is now,” Credence  said,  very quietly, as if she might hear. Because she might.  The boundaries between the real and the unreal had broken down a long time ago and Credence only had himself to blame that he had not properly thought through the consequences. Now Percival was gone and Queenie was being sewn back together, and Tina was on the other side of the waiting room, ambushing anyone in scrubs who passed her by,  desperate for news.

T here was no news.

“I wrote her,” Newt said again. He sounded lost. “She was – I didn't even write her very well. I meant there to be a second book, only the publisher wasn't interested. There were questions I never sorted out, where Grindelwald came from, what happened to Ariana. She was paper, and words…”

It clicked, in Credence’s head. A chance. Newt wrote it, Credence read it, and it happened. If they could do that once – “Do you have paper?” Credence asked urgently, and when it turned out that Newt did not have paper, Credence went to the desk, where apparently he looked frantic enough to be given a few sheets off a notepad and a dodgy ballpoint. Newt stared at him bewilderedly when these things were shoved into his hands.

“Write it,” Credence gabbled. “We made impossible things happen by saying so, didn’t we, can’t we make Queenie better? Write it down. ‘All was well’. She’s going to be okay. I’ll read it, and…”

“Credence,” Newt said, too gently, “it isn’t that simple.”

“Try,” Credence pleaded. “Please. We have to try.”

Newt looked at the paper in his hands, drew a breath, and began to write.

*

There was a child in the room, which seemed inappropriate for  an operating theatre . Queenie wanted to tell someone that, but she could not move or talk. She seemed only marginally attached to her body at all; whatever she was seeing through, it probably wasn’t her eyes.

“It’s happening again,” said the girl in the shadows. She looked about fourteen, maybe younger. Her hair was brown, in two braids. Her eyes were nothing but whites.  


“You shouldn’t be watching this,” Queenie said, distressed. She did not make a sound. The girl heard.

“I have walked on battlefields, and waited with the fishes for the drowned,” she replied calmly. “A few rips in flesh do not trouble me, though it is kind of you to worry.”

“I can’t hear you,” Queenie said. “In my head, you’re not there. Why?”

“You are alive.” The girl came closer. The doctors did not appear to see her. “For now.”

“Oh.” Queenie blinked, or tried to; it didn’t work. “That’s nice to hear.”

“Is it?” The girl frowned. “Not everyone thinks so. Some are happy to see me.”

“No offence, honey.”

“You don’t belong here,” the girl said. “You come from so far away.”

“Yeah,” Queenie began. It was taking more effort to talk. She managed to finish her sentence, because it felt like it mattered. “I like it here.”

“That might help,” the girl said. Queenie could not see her any more. She could not see much of anything. She heard the voice as if from very, very far away. “But it might not.”

*

_ Queenie Goldstein is well. Queenie Goldstein heals. _

_ Queenie Goldstein lives. She lives. She lives. _

Standing in the parking lot while the sun rose behind him, Credence read until his voice cracked, and kept reading.

*

A lbus Dumbledore’s rooms were not difficult to break into. This was a castle; there were servants. Chastity found one and told him that Dumbledore the Great and Powerful wanted tea, then when the door was opened, she sat down in a chair beside the fireplace like she had the right to be there. The footman, or whatever the hell he was, did not care. He was probably overworked and underpaid. Creepy fantasyland did not seem the kind of place that had unions.

When he shut the door behind him, she got up and searched with the same methodical care she had used to go through her siblings’ things when she thought they were getting reckless. She was usually good at finding hiding places, but Dumbledore was apparently better, or perhaps he used magic she knew not what of – it eventually became clear to her that she was wasting her time, and she might not have very much of that to spare. 

She should have expected no better, trying to find a fucking Invisibility Cloak. The suggestion was so practical, though – it was the perfect ticket out of here, and Dumbledore himself had confirmed its existence. Even if Grindelwald could not open the way out of this world, the Cloak would be invaluable for getting somewhere that wasn’t here. 

Chastity rocked back on her heels,  trying to decide what to do. She cast a disgusted eye across the mysterious debris of Dumbledore’s rooms. No one needed all of this alchemist-slash-mad-scientist rubbish, except to impress gullible people who thought it meant something. Real power was something you saw instantly. It was looking at someone and thinking,  _ there, that’s the winning side. _

I t was something Modesty was smart enough to work out someday without Chastity’s help. She would be fine. Credence – he’d probably had the sense to get out of the house when neither of his sisters came home. If he hadn’t, well. There was nothing Chastity could do about that. It wasn’t like either of them were her responsibility.  _ She _ had not adopted anyone.

She stood up, brushing dust off her knees, and considered the mentality of her mark. Dumbledore had displayed absolutely no evidence that he deserved his reputation, but he did have it, so presumably there were impressive things that he could do when he was so inclined, and the Cloak mattered to him. Where would he put something that mattered so much?

She thought of him pushing Modesty in front of the Mirror and watching her like a hawk. How he had let Chastity break into that room so that he could see her do the same. He had been waiting for something. He couldn’t see what they could, so the only explanation she could think of was… 

Chastity ran all the way upstairs, shouldering the door open. Her reflection was as it had been before, cold-eyed and cruel-mouthed and strong, so much stronger than Chastity had ever looked in her life. Chastity closed her eyes and thought about the winning side. What was her heart’s desire?

“What I want most,” she said, opening her eyes, “is for you to _do what I say_.”

The Chastity in the Mirror was wearing a Cloak. And suddenly, so was Chastity herself, a light warm weight hanging from her shoulders down to the floor. The girl in the mirror smiled wider and crooked her finger. Chastity reached out. Her fingers touched the glass and a knob appeared underneath them, as if it had always been there, just waiting for her to say the right words.

She turned it. The Mirror swung forward in its frame, and on the other side, Chastity could smell snow.


	15. Chapter 15

Percival was having an imaginary conversation with the queen. He knew it was imaginary because they were seated opposite one another in a grubby little diner while trains went by on the other side of the window, in a world Seraphina had never seen, but he was invested in the conversation just the same, because he had been waiting to have it since he kissed Credence Barebone.

“He’s twenty years old. Nearly half your age,” Seraphina said. She sipped at her coffee and regarded the cup judgmentally for a moment before turning the same judging gaze on Percival. “He’s practically a child. What are you doing.”

“I’m thirty seven, not eighty,” Percival muttered.

“Do the math, Percival,” Seraphina said severely. “And answer the question.”

It was true, Percival admitted – to himself, if not out loud – he was too old for Credence, and quite likely what they had (whatever it was that they had) would not last. Credence wanted him now, but it was not as though he had much basis for comparison. Sooner or later the infatuation would fade and he would turn to someone his own age. Percival would have to be graceful about it when it happened.

It would be worth it, he thought, to be close to Credence for a while, to learn the whole of him with hands and lips and words. It had been so long since he had wanted to know anyone so much.

“I want him,” Percival said. “He wants me. He’s old enough to choose.”

“Is he? Hero-worship isn’t heart’s desire, Percival, you know that. What makes him different from the squires who follow you around like puppies?”

Percival watched the trains. Distantly, he was aware of being cold. “I want to be his hero. I want to be…worth that.”

He looked across the table. Seraphina was gone. A teenage girl with long brown braids sat considering him with empty white eyes. “What if it’s the other way around?” she asked. “You’re not dying yet, but you’re close enough to talk to me. You can’t survive this for long without help.”

“You’re Ariana,” Percival concluded. It seemed the best explanation for what was happening to him.  


“They call me Ariana.” The girl shrugged. “I died. Now we’re stuck.”

“He said you were coming for him,” Percival said, “through the mirrors.”

The girl looked at him with those empty white eyes and he knew instinctively that he was not looking at a girl at all, just something that happened to look like one right now. “I will rend him,” she said calmly. “I will have hold of him if I must tear sky and earth asunder. He seeks to _rule_ me.”

“I take it, then,” Percival said, making an effort to sound calm as well, “that I am actually addressing Death.”

The girl inclined her head. “I am called that, too. Ariana is bound to me, and I to her. She is my chain and I am her captor. We are one rage.”

Percival evaluated his current circumstances and decided, what the hell. “Why haven’t you stopped him? If Grindelwald is your enemy – ”

She hissed. The sound was inhuman; it was not a sound that could be made by living things. “He repels me. Foul keeper of secrets, he is a thief and a liar, he keeps it and I cannot touch him!”

“Keeps what? What could possibly hold you at bay?”

Her eyes were not all that was white in the diner any more. It had started to snow. Cold flakes floated into her hair, landed in tiny icy patches on Percival’s skin. Trees grew through the floor and the walls faded to brick around them. The girl said, “Not again, never again,” then she too was gone. Percival lay in the snow beside a broken mirror and a different girl was standing over him, but her eyes were just as cold and he thought, hazily, that she must be just a different facet of Death’s face.

“Where is Grindelwald?” she demanded.

“How should I know?” Percival sighed. He didn’t even hurt any more, which was not a good sign. “Plotting to burn down this town, I expect, or hunting Credence and Newt.” The thought was as horrifying as it was probable, but if Grindelwald had succeeded, he would inevitably come to gloat about it, so perhaps Credence and the others were managing to be elusive.

The girl went very still. “Credence?”

“Shouldn’t you be able to find him yourself?” Percival muttered, closing his eyes. He was so tired. “You shattered the universe, didn’t you, I’m sure you can manage to track him now.”

The girl frowned down at him. She was older than the other one, in her late teens or early twenties, with a face that was all soft curves and hard eyes, surrounded by a blunt auburn bob. Her shoes were very worn and wet from the snow. She looked confused, and angry about it. “Who are you?”

Percival squinted at her with some effort. “That’s an existential question, coming from you.”

“Why is Grindelwald looking for Credence? What could he possibly want from him?”

It was an uncomfortable echo of Percival’s own question. He looked at the girl’s ugly dress, very much of Credence’s world, and her clenched fists, and thought he might have made a mistake. It was too late to worry about it. His eyes drifted shut again, and this time the darkness he fell into was empty and dreamless.

*

There were hospitals in Tina’s world, but her memories of them were as quiet grey places, almost stately in their aura of resignation – nothing like the bright lights and purposeful bustle around her now. There were so many words and terms she didn’t understand and she hated to ask Newt or Credence for an explanation in case the answer was one she couldn’t bear to hear. Then she looked over at where they had been, and they weren’t there to ask anyway. She couldn’t blame them, it had been hours, only she did blame them, because it was Credence’s fault that Grindelwald was in this world to hurt anyone and Newt’s fault that Queenie was here to be hurt by him. If only the two of them had kept their mouths _shut_ …

_And I should keep my thoughts to myself, I guess?_ Tina could almost hear Queenie say, in that quiet gentle tone she used when she was upset and wanted Tina to know it.

_That’s not the same,_ Tina thought back fiercely.  _You help people!_

_That’s what makes it okay? I’m allowed to be different because I make myself useful?_

_I didn’t mean it like that!_ But Tina didn’t know what she meant. She was exhausted and frightened and felt, in the sterile whiteness of the hospital, more alone than she had imagined possible. She had gone with Queenie to prevent terrible things from happening to her, but it was Tina who had walked out of that house with nothing worse than a few scratches while Queenie was covered in blood. Tina had been no protection to her sister at all. If anyone was to blame, it was her.

She prowled the waiting room because to stay still was intolerable. Newt had tried at one point to give her tea, which was well-intentioned and tepid and disgusting; there were also vending machines with little shiny foil packets in them that apparently contained food. Tina stared at them for a while, hypnotised by the swirling fonts and excess of colour. A middle-aged woman with shadows under her eyes stepped in front of her to drop several coins into the slot. When she turned around, she pressed a chocolate bar into Tina’s hand. “It’s a long wait, isn’t it,” was all she said before she went back to her seat. Tina wanted to cry, so she did, and she ate the chocolate bar. It didn’t help, but it didn’t hurt either.

It took a very long time before she realised that she still had the pretty little evening bag hanging on her arm, was still wearing the evening dress that Queenie had picked out, covered in plaster dust and streaked with blood. Then she cried again.

It was starting to get light outside when a nurse finally came to find her. Tina was standing beside the window, looking out at the sea of cars in the parking lot. “Ms Goldstein?” the nurse asked, eyes giving her a quick concerned once-over. Tina nodded, bracing herself. “Your sister has come out of surgery. It’s going to take a while before you can talk to her, she needs to rest, but the injuries weren’t as serious as they initially looked. She should make a full recovery.”

Tina gave a sob, shocky with relief. “She’s going to be okay?”

The nurse smiled. “She’s a tough cookie. If you want to wait until seven, that’s when our visiting hours open. She should have come out of it by then.”

“I’ll wait,” Tina said immediately. She sat at last. The energy that had propelled her through the long night was abruptly absent – she let her head fall into her hands, unable to hold up its weight.

The movement allowed the evening bag to finally slip from her arm. It fell to the ground with a sharp clack. Tina leaned over wearily to scoop it up and looked inside; the dagger Percival had given her was lost under the ceiling of the collapsed house, but the bag held a little lightning bolt of a mirror, somehow unbroken after all it had been through. Tina plucked it out to hold up at eye level. She was expecting to see her own face, because that was generally what you saw when you looked in mirrors. Instead she saw a little girl with blonde hair and a mulish chin. The little girl was glaring fit to kill.

“What the hell?” Tina said aloud.

The little girl looked outraged. “ _You’re_ not Chastity.”

*

The mirrors were not working any more and Modesty didn’t understand why everyone was so upset. What was so wonderful about seeing yourself in a bit of glass? These were people who used magic for everything, she thought they ought to be excited at the opportunity for research into other dimensions, but no, instead the queen was storming around yelling things like “Shore up the enchantments! I want so many Shield charms around this castle that I can’t even see the walls!” and Albus was out in the courtyard trying (and failing) to banish the forest in the courtyard.

Modesty gave up on the lot of them and wandered looking through all the mirrors in the castle. In one she saw a lake surrounded by mountains and a monstrous creature rising out of the water, towering over a girl her own age. The girl’s mouth shaped the word _No._ Then another quake shook the ground and the mirror showed a cellist standing waist deep in a glittering pond, playing wildly while his beautifully dressed audience watched on dispassionately. Modesty went to another mirror and saw a weary-looking man raising a sword to meet the blow of a spectral knight. He shouted, and Modesty heard, _You shall suffer me!_ The image shattered – Modesty glimpsed herself, eyes wide, cheeks flushed – and she saw…

She saw her sister standing in an echo of the snowy wood, growing impossibly within brick walls. There was a man sprawled in the snow at her feet. She was kicking him in the shin, with no visible effect. Chastity threw up her hands, infuriated, and swung a cloak around her shoulders – the wood remained, but Chastity was gone. Modesty leaned close to the mirror, her breath frosting the glass. She saw faint footprints in the snow, leading out of the frame.

It would  have been nice if she went to get Albus because she was worried about her sister, but in actual fact she was spitting furious, betrayed, and feeling spiteful.

Albus, when she reached him, had done something to make the trees go very faint. It was more unnerving than when they had been solid. Modesty regretted telling him anything at the look that came into his face – the look of a man whose worst expectations have not only become a reality, they turned out even worse than he thought they could.

“We have no time,” he said simply. “Come with me.”

He had a long stride and Modesty had to hurry to keep up with him. She was oddly reminded of trying to catch up to Credence on the walks home from school, when he was too anxious about being home late to remember her; the ominous feeling of something terrible waiting, inescapable. It had always made her feel sick with a surge of miserable anger that had nowhere to go.

Her anger held no weight in her own world. Here, though, things were different. She had watched women walk like they owned the ground they trod, shoulders steady beneath their armour, and at the back of her mind she had formed the foundations of cautious plans that ended in her someday walking with that same earned ease, a scabbard at her hip.

Albus talked to her as if she already did, which was why she liked him. And now he was talking to her as if he thought she could save the world.

“I have looked into the Mirror of Erised over and over again,” he told her as he rapidly ascended the stairs. “I was seeking a path to Grindelwald, a way to defeat him. What I saw was difficult to understand, but I saw you there, Modesty. You are one of a rare society – the travellers between worlds. You can see them now, can’t you? In all the mirrors?”

Modesty frowned. “You can’t?”

He gave her a painful smile. “I wish I could. Gellert – Grindelwald used to tell me about them, the wondrous things he saw. We planned journeys,  to explore until we found the world that felt like home …ah, how many lies we told each other.”

“You…” Modesty trailed off awkwardly then tried again. She did not have the words to talk about things like two men who wanted to spend their lives together, especially when one of them had gone evil and was trying to conquer the universe. She decided to come out with it baldly, the only way she knew how. “Were you in love with him?”

Albus paused outside the room of the Mirror of Erised, his hand on the doorknob. “I suppose I must have been,” he said, “for what it was worth.”

“Oh.” The library had not prepared Modesty for this. Her mother had, with a script that could be adapted to any and all sinners, but Modesty had already decided to do the opposite of anything Mary-Lou would approve of, so she cast about and eventually came out with, “He’s really horrible, though, and you’re good. You can do better.”

He looked at her with startled rue. It appeared he did not know what to say either. “ You can take a great deal on trust.”

Modesty blinked. No one had ever thought of her as trusting before; the only person she really trusted was Credence, and he was the one who had more or less brought her up while Mary-Lou was busy verbally excoriating the suburban heathens.  Modesty liked Albus. She thought his was probably the right side. She did not  _trust_ him.

The Mirror was uncovered, when they entered, and the floor was wet around it with melted snow. Albus took Modesty by the shoulders and gently moved her into place. “What do you see?” he asked. His grip was tight, as if he thought a hand might reach through the glass to drag her away.

It was not an unreasonable fear.

Modesty saw darkness. A vast and roiling thing that looked like the way she felt sometimes, the helpless hurting rage in her chest burst free – this had to be Ariana. What was left of her, as Albus put it. Then the darkness was gone and she was looking at Chastity again, Chastity who was  a  _damn traitor_ and in the company of a man who had to be, could only be, Gellert Grindelwald, Modesty’s sworn enemy. And if she hadn’t actually sworn the enmity in front of Chastity, never mind, the intent had been clear. Grindelwald was a murderer who had broken Albus Dumbledore’s heart and Chastity was standing there quite calmly with her hands folded in front of her, telling him God knew what, definitely things he should not know.

It would be a nice thing if Modesty wanted to save the world out of a sense of honour  and belief in humankind , or failing that the Christian duty that she had heard so much about all her life, but in fact what was motivating her now was a savage sense of competition. Chastity had picked the wrong side.  Somehow,  Modesty would make sure she regretted it .

The floor shuddered beneath her feet. Chastity vanished; Modesty was looking at a woman she didn’t know, with red-rimmed eyes and a worse-for-wear evening gown. “ _You’re_ not Chastity,” Modesty said, infuriated – she had had the perfect opportunity to spy and now it was gone.

She realised, belatedly, that the woman could see  _her_ .

“Who are you?” she asked, suspiciously. Maybe this woman worked for Grindelwald too.

“Oh, I don’t like this, I don’t want anything to do with this,” the woman said hastily. “You can go away now.” She looked up and made an unhappy noise. “Everyone thinks I’m crazy now, great, thank you for that,” she whispered.

“Don’t be stupid, people talk to the air all the time, they’re called phones,” Modesty pointed out.

The woman hesitated. “Phones? You have phones?”

Behind her, Modesty saw the corner of what looked like a television. There was ugly vinyl seating underneath it. “My world,” Modesty said, without thinking, “you’re from my world!”

“Your – ?” The woman’s eyes widened. “You’re Credence’s sister. Aren’t you? The little one?”

Modesty’s suspicion surged. “How do you know my brother?”

But the woman was smiling, like Modesty was a desperately needed bit of good news. “Wait until I tell him, he’ll be so relieved,” she said, standing up. “He was here not long ago, I wish he’d told me where he was going, just typical he’d disappear where his sister appears in a bloody  _mirror_ …I’m Tina, by the way? I live with the man who wrote  _Silvertongue._ ”

“You what?” Modesty demanded, heartfelt. Albus’s hands squeezed her shoulders.

“I know, it’s bizarre. Credence has been worrying about you, can you stay on the…line? I’ll find him. He can’t be far.”

He was as far as he could possibly be, for Modesty, but she wanted very badly to see him. That would make her feel real again – it would make everything strange and wonderful and terrible real, if Credence saw it too.

*

Credence was sitting on the hood of the car when Newt came walking back through the parking lot. The answer was there on his face before he opened his mouth. “Queenie is going to be all right. You did it. Or maybe you didn’t, it could be a coincidence, maybe  she would have recovered on her own.” Newt looked troubled. “We don’t know. It’s not enough evidence.”

It was enough for Credence. He looked at the scraps of paper that Newt had written on, nothing but words until they were read out loud. This was what he could do. This was how fix what he had broken.

He still had Newt’s car keys in his pocket. 

“I’m sorry I brought Grindelwald to your town,” he said, sliding off the hood and reaching for the driver’s side. “Tell Queenie thank you for me.”

“No,” Newt said reasonably, and tugged open the passenger side. “I’m coming with you, of course. You need a writer.”

“But if Grindelwald gets hold of you,” Credence began. It was hard to construct the counter-argument when all he had been prepared for was to argue for his own case.

Newt was quietly immovable. “I made him. It’s my job to unmake him.” He looked thoughtful, more like a man about to conduct important research than one going into a battle, possibly – probably – to the death. “And if I didn’t make him, I’d like to know.”

“But,” Credence said, “your animals.”

Newt flinched. He did not get out of the car. “Tina and Queenie will look after them for me.”

Credence drew a deep breath. If he could save Queenie, he could save Percival. And if he could do that, it would all be worth it.

He met his own eyes in the rearview mirro r. The gleam of sun on glass made it hard to see. The morning had barely begun and already it was hot, the rain of last night evaporating now that the storm had passed. It was still the middle of summer. It had been a matter of days since Credence’s life had changed completely – it would be worth it, for him, to have had that.

He turned the keys, and drove.


	16. Chapter 16

_There were once three brothers who were travelling along a lonely, winding road at twilight._

There were once two boys who wanted to conquer Death and a girl who became it. 

_In time, the brothers reached a river too deep to wade through and too dangerous to swim across._

One boy came from another world with blood fresh on his hands and a wand in his possession that gave its bearer untold powers, but that was not enough for him. He had been hungry all his life. He would always be hungry. The other boy had a mother who was lost, a sister whose voice had banished her and a brother who could not forgive any of them for his grief. The boy had lost even his heart. He wanted to rule something in his chaos, and what better act of heroism than the mastery of Death? 

_However, these brothers were learned in the magical arts, and so they simply waved their wands and made a bridge appear across the treacherous water._

The girl wanted many things: to bring her mother and brother home, to have all as it was before a thief leapt from her beloved book. Above all she wanted to make so great a sacrifice that it would amends for her cursed voice. She thought she understood the rules of the story. 

_They were halfway across it when they found their path blocked by a hooded figure._

She did not understand. 

_And Death spoke to them._

Nor did Death.

*

There was no point in demanding sacrifices if your victim couldn’t find you when they decided to give up and die on your altar. Grindelwald was waiting in Queenie’s kitchen with a mostly empty bottle of gin at his elbow and a glass from the best set of crystal-ware in his hand, booted feet propped on the table. Stupidly, Credence’s eyes were drawn first to the book propped open on his knee. It was the annotated copy of _Silvertongue_ that he had seen Percival put in his pocket. There was a second book closed underneath it, slimmer, the linen binding well-worn.

Grindelwald licked his thumb and turned the page. He tutted. “Three spelling mistakes in chapter sixteen,” he remarked lightly. “You need to choose your words more carefully.”

“Get your feet off my table,” Newt said.

Grindelwald raised his eyes slowly. He let the book fall shut. “Is that what you have to say to me, Silvertongue?”

“Queenie is dead,” Newt said flatly. “Tina is gone. I don’t have anything to say to you.”

It made Credence shiver to hear him say it – with their voices, there was an instinctive dread that the lies would become a reality. But the words were not written. They were just air and desperation. Grindelwald already held too many cards, he wasn’t getting the Goldsteins. It was one of the two things that Newt and Credence had agreed upon.

Grindelwald wore his own face, for once, and a big dark coat that Credence recognised as what he had been wearing when he first arrived in this world. He could not wear a mask with the two of them – he was not bothering to try. He held up _Silvertongue_ , wagging it back and forth.

“Should I call you Father?” he asked idly. “Or God?”

Newt looked like he might be sick. Credence shifted forward; the last thing he wanted was Grindelwald’s attention, but he had a little more armour against it than Newt did. “You don’t believe he’s either of those things,” Credence said. He knew he was right; he knew what someone looked like when they truly believed.

Grindelwald grinned. He threw _Silvertongue_ carelessly on the floor. “I don’t come from this book.” He held up the second, smaller volume. The difference in the way he handled the two put all Credence’s nerves on edge. _There_ was the reverence. “Ariana Dumbledore read me from my world. She tried to put me back, of course, but you Silvertongues never can do that, can you? What strange creatures you are. She read out other things instead. I have almost everything I need now – the wand, the stone, the cloak. There is only one thing I need you to do. If you get that right, you can have your knight. He’d be in better condition if you had made up your mind a little faster, but it’s nothing a few healing potions can’t fix, and I can give you those. All you have to do is read a few sentences. Doesn’t that sound fair?”

It had been less than five minutes and already the plan was going dreadfully wrong.

“You,” Credence began. The question of just what condition Percival might be in after a night as Grindelwald’s captive made it difficult to think about anything else and Credence had to swallow before he kept speaking. “But I read you out of _Silvertongue_.”

“Lightning struck twice.” Grindelwald’s tone was quite affable. His eyes were not. “Fortunately, I keep the gateway to my world close.” He patted the front of his coat, over his heart. “It becomes a habit not to trust in the ground beneath your feet when Death herself is always at your heels.”

“Death herself,” Credence echoed, his voice faint in his ears. It sounded powerless.

“Ariana was a silly little girl who couldn’t finish what she started, so you’re going to do it for her.” Grindelwald held out his hand. “Aren’t you? Think about it, Credence, you can be the man who summoned Death. What a story your friend here could write about that.”

“If I knew you were out there,” Newt said thinly, “I wouldn’t have written a word of yours.”

“If wishes were knives, we’d all be in our graves.” Grindelwald’s hand was still held outstretched; he had not looked away from Credence. The skin, when Credence touched it, was cold and dry, and the fingers closed at once like a steel trap.

Grindelwald offered no such courtesies to Newt, simply seized his arm. This time, when Grindelwald vanished, he took the two of them with him.

The first thing Credence became aware of, when he recovered from a blinding surge of nausea, was the cold. He was ankle deep in snow. Around him was a dark wood and when light flashed from above he thought at first Grindelwald had brought him into a storm, flinching as he waited for the thunderclap – until he realised that it was not lightning. Overhead was a ceiling striped with copper piping and guttering fluorescent lights. Between the trees, Credence saw concrete pillars tagged with graffitti. His stomach plummeted. He knew this place.

“What have you done?” he whispered. He stepped forward unthinkingly and his foot knocked against something half-buried in snow – an old school backpack abandoned in a broken place. Credence’s hands were shaking as he picked it up. Written in his own handwriting, black ink against grey canvas, was the name **Modesty Barebone.** There had, he remembered dazedly, been so many identical cheap backpacks in her year that it had been necessary to distinguish hers somehow, and she had been angry at him for broadcasting her ‘freakish’ name to anyone who looked at her bag.

She must have dropped it, when Credence read Grindelwald and Percival out of the book and his sisters into it; the backpack must have tumbled down the stairs into the parking lot under the library and there it had stayed, forgotten, while the world cracked and black trees grew around it and the impossible snow silently fell.

“I think it’s an improvement,” said another voice. A girl’s voice. Credence turned towards it.

Behind him stood a tall mirror, spider-webbed with cracks, and in front of that Chastity sat on the trunk of a fallen tree, knees drawn primly together under her drab old skirt. She looked at Credence as if he was a stranger and not a very interesting one, a boy with nothing worth putting in the donations box. He stared at her, shocked speechless.

“Welcome home,” Grindelwald whispered in his ear.

*

Queenie took it quite in stride when Tina slipped between the curtains around her bed and produced a magic mirror from her evening bag. There was very little that could really shock Queenie. Sitting up was painful for her, so Tina carefully passed the mirror over and Queenie smiled into it as warmly as if she was shaking hands in person.

“Hi there,” she said. “You’re Credence’s little sister? I’ve heard so much about you, Credence has been going wild. Are you okay? You didn’t fall into a void or something?”

“A _void_ ,” Tina squeaked.

Queenie shrugged, then winced. “I wondered. Didn’t want to bring it up before.”

“I’m in Macusa!” Modesty interrupted. “I’m with Albus Dumbledore. He’s the hero of _Silvertongue._ You know about _Silvertongue_?”

“I’ve read _Silvertongue,_ ” Tina said, leaning over Queenie’s shoulder. “I don’t like that guy.”

“That’s not fair, Teenie, the poor man got his heart broken. Think how you’d feel if I went around trying to take over the world. More than one world! It’s enough to make anybody a cynic.” Queenie turned back to Modesty. “Sorry, honey, we’re still listening, tell us about Macusa. What’s going on? What’s with the mirrors?”

“We don’t know,” Modesty admitted. “But we think it’s Ariana. Only she’s not exactly Ariana any more. She’s…” Modesty paused to think. “She’s kind of a human stormcloud. Except less human.”

“That sounds – not good,” Tina said.

“Poor kid,” Queenie sighed.

Modesty frowned at them. Whatever reaction she had been hoping to get, this obviously was not it. “I _need_ to get through,” she said. “I have to stop Grindelwald.”

Tina, incredulous, opened her mouth and Queenie’s hand shot out to close around her wrist. “We’d help if we could, honey, but we didn’t exactly get here under our own steam.”

Modesty turned her head to look at someone Tina and Queenie could not see, on her side of the glass. They must be tall; she had to tip back her head to see them. Tina had never been very good at guessing ages, but it was clear to see that Modesty was much too young for any of this – young enough that she believed she could be unstoppable, young enough that it was not a real thing to her yet that one day she would die.

And then Modesty just wasn’t there any more – light glanced off the glass and the mirror showed only Tina and Queenie’s faces side by side, a double echo of worry. “Where did she go?” Queenie asked, shaking the mirror a little like that might make Modesty’s face come back into view. “Teenie, what just happened?”

Tina didn’t know, but it felt like a safe bet that it was something bad.

*

Credence could not remember a time when Chastity had not been his sister. She could. He had thought for years that she resented him, and later Modesty, for intruding into her place and taking away Mary-Lou’s attention. It had taken too long before Credence understood that Chastity resented them for not taking up more of her mother’s attention, for – however unintentionally – turning the house into a battleground of Good Child versus the Bad Children, battles only Mary-Lou could ever win.

Until now.

Chastity stood with her back to the mirror, small and pale and cold. Her dress had been meant for hot days working in the stuffy church, not this impossible winter. Her face had the pinched, wary look Credence recognised as a harbringer of a beating. Grindelwald strolled over to her and placed a large hand on her shoulder, drawing her against his side.

“Chastity,” Credence said. No other words would form; he was voiceless again.

“ _Chastity_ ,” Gridelwald echoed thoughtfully. “Credence. Modesty. Such _virtuous_ names in your family, my dear.” He tightened his hold on Chastity in a sort of embrace. She endured it without any change of expression. “What a world this is. I wonder what peculiar mind invented it.”

Credence did not take his eyes off his sister. She met his pleading stare with stony indifference; that, at least, was as it had always been. He was only aware of Grindelwald on the periphery of his vision, looming at Chastity’s side, until Grindelwald abruptly reclaimed his attention by catching hold of something in the snow and pulling a cloak from thin air with all the theatricality of a stage magician drawing scarves from a hat. There was no amusement to be found in the comparison – under the cloak was Percival’s body. For a sickening moment Credence was certain that he was already dead, but when Grindelwald gave his side a light kick, Percival stirred with a faint pained sound.

“Alive, as promised,” Grindelwald said.

Credence looked from Percival’s unconscious body to Grindelwald’s satisfied face with a surge of violence that would have transmuted into action if Newt had not grabbed hold of him in time. “He’s _dying_ ,” Credence shouted.

“That is an exaggeration,” Grindelwald told him, with a loose shrug. “I poured a healing potion into him only hours ago, he should be awake soon enough – provided, of course, that you stop wasting that enchanting voice of yours on recriminations and put it to use.” He held up his book again. “What do you say, Credence?”

Percival’s shirt was red in patches at the front, a colour that had darkened and dried in and been wet again by the snow. Credence pulled his arm free of Newt’s hold and went to kneel at Percival’s side, carefully brushing the damp strands of black hair out of his face. The shadow of stubble had crept across his jaw – he wouldn’t like that, he was so fastidious about his appearance. Credence could picture him studying the ruined shirt and critiquing the uncivilised convention of washing machines.

He bent forward, pressing his forehead against Percival’s, close enough that he could feel the warmth of Percival’s breath exhaled against his cold cheek. Finally, a proof of life he believed.

“Give me the book,” he said.

*

“Come back!” Modesty yelled, but there was no point and she knew it. The two women in the hospital had been replaced by the vision of a ballroom where masked people danced. Modesty didn’t give a damn about any of _them_ , she wanted to find Credence.

Modesty wasn’t sure she believed all that stuff Albus had told her about being a Chosen One. It sounded just a little too much like something her mother would say. She did believe in choices, though. If you wanted something, you had to go on and get it yourself, and if you wanted to save the world, well, the same principle applied, only without discreet shoplifting as a potential solution. Chastity had got through somehow – Modesty could do the same.

“I’m going to need a sword,” she told Albus. He nodded, accepting this as a very reasonable request, and took her to the armoury to find a weapon that would fit her hand. During the search, he gently extracted all the details of what she had seen in the Mirror. The mention of her brother brought a troubled look into his face. He stood for a moment looking at nothing before reaching up and taking a small blade from a large rack.

“You should be trained before wielding this,” he said. “Sir Percival expects a great deal from his squires before he gives them their swords. But we have no time.”

Modesty’s fingers closed around the smooth leather of the hilt. Though the sword was heavy, it was a good weight. She gave it an experimental swish. Albus stepped prudently back.

“Do you know how to get to other worlds?” Modesty asked bluntly, because it was worth _asking_.

“I do not,” Albus admitted. “If there are roads other than a Silvertongue, I have never heard of them.”

“Huh.” Modesty scowled. Chastity had worked it out in no time at all – Chastity was like that, always side-stepping into the right position of every circumstance as if it came instinctively to her, while Modesty was awkwardness and angriness and impatience at all times.

There was a mirror in the armoury; not a beautiful framed free-standing thing as the Mirror upstairs was, just a plain and rather scratched rectangle of glass that presumably intended for last minute preparations before tournaments or other formal events. Modesty looked, not truly expecting to see anything useful, and saw –

There was a girl there, older than she was but not as old as Chastity, a girl with brown braids and white eyes. She stood in a bright empty place with a vast roiling shadow stretching behind her, and she was looking directly at Modesty.

“Ariana,” Modesty said. Beside her, Albus froze.

“Once, I wanted to save my brother too,” Ariana said. Her voice sounded as if it came from very, very far away, transmitted like the crackle of an ancient radio. “But he didn’t need saving. He needed to be stopped.”

“It’s not Credence’s fault,” Modesty said furiously. “It’s _Grindelwald_ , and _you’re_ the one who read him out. Credence didn’t mean for anything to happen to me.”

“Neither did Albus,” Ariana whispered. “He loved me. Look at me now.” The shadow behind her grew, stretching until there was nothing around her but seething dark.

Modesty had lain awake in her bed listening to the crack of a belt downstairs; she had seen bloody lines across her brother’s hand, on his back, and known they were there because of things she had done, that Credence had taken the blame for her again and she had let him. She had seen much worse things than a spectre in a mirror.

“Would you have stopped him?” Modesty demanded. “He’s your _brother_ , not a character in a story.”

“We all come from stories,” Ariana said. “To exist is to be inside a story. We are all words in the end, Modesty. You are just breath and I am just memory.”

Modesty glared. “So what do you remember?”

“Once,” Ariana said. She raised her hand and drew the word with her finger in the air; it floated there, shadow transformed to ink. “There were two sisters who hated their world and a boy who doomed it.”

Her voice grew clearer as she spoke, as if she was coming nearer, as if the glass was not there and they stood face to face. The words spilled from Ariana’s hand, obscuring her behind their net. “One girl wanted freedom above all things. She could not be a traitor, for she held no allegiance to any soul but her own. The other girl desired victory. When she stood before the mirror in the armoury beneath the castle, looking Death in the eye, she knew…”

Of course, Modesty thought. A Silvertongue.

And then Albus was alone, surrounded by weapons, with his reflection flickering thinly in the glass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In honour of the penultimate chapter of _Silvertongue_ , I'm including a playlist of music that I've been listening to as I write. I'm fairly terrible at doing anything on Ao3 other than the most basic of functions, so if it doesn't work, tell me so and I'll try again.
> 
> [Fuck with Myself](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_nFq23Jfd0) – Banks  
> [How to Be Invisible](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FMtQrsKM8c) – Kate Bush  
> [Have You Got It In You?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK1EbuZr1a4) \- Imogen Heap  
> [Offer It Up](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPXueIhSIug) – Kate Miller-Heidke  
> [Queen of Peace](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7mXXqfVeGc) – Florence + the Machine  
> [I Believe You Liar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaP1AM1mdpE) – Megan Washington  
> [The Tiger Inside Will Eat the Child](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSN5kzwXdws) – Kate Miller-Heidke  
> [Bleeding Out](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8vcLuNVaIE) – Imagine Dragons  
> [The Devil Wears a Suit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItYQYF8HC4Q) – Kate Miller-Heidke  
> [Castle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rfSHisyHdc) – Halsey  
> [Shake It Out](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbbmM410WnE) – Florence + the Machine  
> [Illuminate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ3qf3pxPKU) – Emma Louise  
> [Burn the Pages](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_x_uSeYFys) – Sia
> 
> ONE CHAPTER TO GO.


	17. Chapter 17

The story began when a boy saw power and fell in love.

It began when he saw his first face in another world and fell in love for a second time, but not quite deep enough.

It began with a forgotten little girl who thought, _you will remember me._ It began in the dark with blood and betrayal. It began with something lost that will never be found again. You can’t go back. You can’t fix this now. It is what it is.

It began. That’s all. It began.

*

Chastity had been chasing indifference all her life, which was ironic if you thought about it. Was there any hope for you if what you cared about most in the world was not caring at all?

She could pretend with the best of them, of course, well enough that everyone she met would believe it, but she didn’t want to depend on belief. She wanted to stand above them all in a high cold place and never look down. She wanted to rule – yes, empires if she could get them, she wasn’t going to lie – but more than anything, herself, she wanted absolute dominion over herself. Her heart would beat only because she commanded it. She would not bleed unless it amused her.

What would she not do, to have that?

Grindelwald was a liar. A thief. A secret-keeper. He had feared Death with an obsessive, brooding constancy; now he sought to hold that fear and squeeze it until it broke. That he would break other things too was an acceptable consequence. _You are the one like me,_ he had said to Chastity, and maybe he was right.

But Chastity was inclined to think he wasn’t.

Among all the other things that Grindelwald was, he was a performer. He liked an audience. He was an eloquent orator of his ambitions and his wrongs, less because he needed to say them aloud and more for the interest he had in the reactions of his listeners, falling on their weakness with the hunger of a feral thing. He was a man who did not know the meaning of satisfaction. He had two Silvertongues at his mercy, a knight of Macusa unconscious at his feet, and it wasn’t enough – he wanted Chastity to crack too, to present him with a quartet of victories.

She stood four feet away from the brother she had betrayed, neatly tying knots around the wrists of his friend, and said, “I think he should be gagged. You can’t be too careful.”

Grindelwald smiled, all charm and alliance again. “Excellent thinking, Miss Barebone.”

Chastity had had to walk past a bar on her way home from the church every night for years, the top button on her blouse pulling the collar tight against her neck. The drunks would whistle and catcall every single time, like actors given their cue. The boys at school had snapped her bra straps and thought it was funny when she shoved them away; the old men at church pinched her cheek if Mary-Lou was looking and pinched her ass if she wasn’t. Chastity was used to men waiting for an opportunity to forget how decent they were. Grindelwald liked to think he was grander and more terrible than other men, but the only difference was that he did not want to put his hands up her skirt; he wanted to put them inside her head and pull her thoughts apart to see how they worked.

She pulled the knots taut and lifted up her blank, pretty eyes. He could fucking try.

“What next?” she asked.

The blood in the water, after all, wasn’t hers. Grindelwald circled around her and strolled back to Credence, who could not even pretend at indifference, who wore all his bruises on the surface. He was still kneeling in the snow, the knees of his jeans soaked through, mindlessly smoothing the hair of his dying lover. Chastity didn’t understand how the man wasn’t already dead. Magic, she supposed, which was desperately stupid as a solution. It made her fingers twitch and her teeth clench to see Credence so raw, so careless with his heart, as if ripping it out wasn’t the easiest thing in the world.

“Time to start reading,” Grindelwald crooned. “Page eighty seven, if you would.”

Credence opened the book. The spine was cracked from use, opening easily to the desired place. Credence was shaking, from shock or cold, hard enough that the pages ruffled between his hands, and Grindelwald made a clucking sound with the tip of his tongue.

“I can’t have a Silvertongue stuttering,” he remarked, producing a flask from his pocket and proffering it. When Credence didn’t take it from his hand, he abruptly seized his chin and tipped half the contents into his mouth, making Credence splutter and choke.

The suddenness of it made Chastity’s limbs lock instinctively. She could not have moved even if she had wished to. Grindelwald took the flask away and ran his thumb along Credence’s chin, wiping away drips of potion. It was the same flask that Grindelwald had poured down Percival Graves’ throat, with the same amount of care.

“There,” he said simply, “that’s better.”

Credence looked at him. For the first time in her life, Chastity could not guess what he was thinking. Then he looked at her, and she knew exactly what that meant. Chastity had always known she could not protect herself and her siblings at the same time – she had chosen herself, and refused to feel guilty for it – but she could not meet his eyes, and felt sick with the role of witness.

“Start reading,” Grindelwald said. He tossed the flask over his shoulder, lazily, making Chastity dart to catch it, and called, “Move the distraction, would you? Put him in a corner out of the way. Leave the other Silvertongue where he is, I want him to watch this.”

Credence drew a sharp breath and turned his eyes down to the page. “There were once three brothers travelling along a lonely, winding road at twilight…”

*

Doctors liked it when people healed – that was what hospitals were for. They liked it less when a patient came in with a unique case of chest trauma that no one could properly explain and that patient was sitting up a few hours later, a bit pale and overtired but with the strange slices across their skin already sealing over with pink scar tissue. There had been a series of whispered consultations and disbelieving re-examinations and far too many questions floating around unasked. When the latest doctor disappeared down the long white corridor, Queenie stood up on wobbling legs.

“What are you _doing_?” Tina demanded, having snuck back in once the doctor was out of sight. “You’re supposed to be resting!”

“Uh-huh,” Queenie agreed. Her chest ached and itched at the same time, a raw feeling that grew significantly worse whenever she moved. “But either this curse wears off weirdly fast or someone magicked me better, and the only people I know who might be able to do that are Newt and Credence, and neither of them are here right now to ask. So. Let’s find them.”

Tina protested all the way down the ward, while Queenie leaned heavily on her for balance. Queenie was very good at avoiding people when she wanted to, but it took a lot of concentration to figure out who really should not see her if she wanted to get out of this building unchallenged, and by the time they reached the elevators she was staying upright mostly because the other option was lying face-down on the grubby linoleum and passing out. She let Tina figure out what buttons to push. Tina swore a bit and complained about needlessly complicated machinery, and the elevator eventually lurched into motion. They had gone down two floors when the mirror wall behind them exploded and a small human shape hurtled through the storm of glittering shards, barrelling into Tina, who gave a shriek and went down with a thunk. Queenie collapsed with a wail of pain and surprise.

The little girl got to her feet, looking a bit shell-shocked. She was holding a sword. That did not seem normal for a child her age, but neither was it particularly normal to enter an elevator via the mirror, so Queenie didn’t dwell on details. Once the screaming pain in her chest had subsided to a level that allowed for focus on other things, she recognised the child as Modesty Barebone. Tina, who had caught on a fraction faster, said loudly “Why do you have a sword?” just as the elevator doors gently pinged open. The three people waiting on the other side stared at their little tableau in stunned silence. One woman who had been texting dropped her phone.

Tina scrambled upright and heaved Queenie with her for a hasty escape. Modesty hurried after them, the sword nicking the lino in long scratches when she lost control of its weight and the sharp tip dropped to the floor beside her. “Where are we?” she demanded. “Where’s Credence?”

Normally Queenie would be trying to reassure her, but it was taking all her energy to move so she just gritted out, “Phone, cab,” as they reached the waiting room and Tina fumbled out her purse with one hand while she propped Queenie up with the other. She managed to operate the pay phone on the wall without too much second-guessing and ten minutes later the three of them were piling into the back of a cab, Modesty’s dress and sword passed off as props for a school play. The cab driver did not really believe them, but neither did he care all that much as long as they weren’t causing trouble in his immediate vicinity. He dropped them off outside Newt’s house. Queenie knew, as they pulled up, that Newt wasn’t there, but she had to look anyway. She had to be sure.

Someone had been here: drinking, picking things up and putting them down where they didn’t belong. A copy of _Silvertongue_ lay on the kitchen floor like a terrible calling card.

“Grindelwald,” Tina whispered.

Modesty lunged for the door. Queenie got hold of the back of her dress before she hared off to fight evil single-handedly as apparently everyone Queenie met these days desperately wanted to do. “Where are you going?” she sighed. “Do you actually know where Grindelwald is?”

“In the wood,” Modesty began, but she stopped trying to get loose as the extent of the problem hit her. She did not know where the wood was. If she did, it would have to be down the road or else there was no way of getting there – none of them could drive, the cab had eaten up all Tina’s emergency money and Newt’s credit card was with him wherever the hell he was. Queenie sighed again. These were the sort of plans her friends made without her around to gently sew up the gaps.

“Toast,” she announced. Tina and Modesty stared at her. “We’d better have breakfast before the next awful thing happens,” Queenie clarified. “I nearly died yesterday. I want toast. While I’m making that, you can feed Newt’s animals, the poor things must be starving.”

“Grindelwald is going to conquer the world and you’re making breakfast!” Modesty howled.

“I don’t have any better ideas,” Queenie said simply. “I’ll tell you when I do.”

Modesty trailed Tina outside, protesting all the way, and Queenie was left alone in her kitchen. Grindelwald had been here. She could feel the imprint of him in this, her own place; she did not want to touch the things that he had touched. She took a deep breath. Her chest hurt. She put bread in the toaster, took the butter dish out of the fridge, stared at the label on a jar of raspberry jam. She put the gin away. Then she took the bottle out again and threw it in the rubbish. The toast popped.

She heard Tina scream inside her head and was running before the sound reached the air.

*

The water of the pond was flat as a mirror in the hot still morning, and Death rose from it as one. She walked across the water and Modesty, staring from the reeds, thought blankly of miracles, and how it had never struck her that the occurrence of one would be terrifying.

_He’s done it,_ Ariana said. She was less than two metres away but her voice had that same distance Modesty had heard before, as if she was so much further away than she seemed. _He has all he needs now. The wand. The stone. The cloak. The book. He will call me soon and I must answer._

Tina mouthed for a bit before getting out a strangled syllable. “What.”

“Then tell me where Credence is,” Modesty cried, halfway between demand and plea, knowing that she was not sweet enough to be persuasive, that she had nothing except hope on her side and what was hope to Death? She had to ask.

_Your sister will not forgive. Your brother will not forget. Leave them behind,_ Ariana whispered, _or they will drag you with them into the abyss._

“So there is an abyss, huh?” Queenie came up behind Modesty, breathing heavily, her face drawn tight with pain. “I guess you’d know. I’m sorry about what happened to you.”

The girl on the water tipped her head to one side. _To which one of us?_

Queenie shrugged. “Both. I can hear you, you know. You’re kinda loud.”

Ariana stared at her. _There are not many like you, Queenie Goldstein._

“That’s sweet,” Queenie said. “I guess you’d know about that too. You must meet a lot of people.”

“Oh. Right. That’s Death. Is that Death?” Tina shook herself violently. “What are you doing here?”

_The one who seeks the rule of me is ready to make a summoning,_ Ariana said, with a sibilant enraged hiss beneath the words. _I come to seek allies against him._

Modesty didn’t trust that. Ariana – or Death – the both of them could have put her down exactly where she needed to be, and hadn’t. “Why us?”

_Credence Barebone must be stopped. If I cannot do it, one of you may._

“You’ll take me to him?” Modesty stepped forward; her left shoe sank into muddy water and was instantly soaked to the sock. “Really to wherever he is, not an elevator in the middle of nowhere?”

_Where I go,_ Ariana promised, _you will go likewise._ The water around her shone with an opaque kind of frost, an unnatural clearness that showed nothing beneath its surface – but when Modesty looked closer, it showed many things. She saw a girl smiling in victory at the top of a tower while its walls crumbled around her; she saw a man with a scarred face lying still as a corpse until his chest heaved with breath and he was thrown back into life. The images overlapped each other, one after another, worlds all the way down, reflection upon reflection upon reflection.

Modesty saw trees and snow and a dark head bowed over a book. She plunged.

*

_Death was cunning. He pretended to congratulate the three brothers upon their magic, and said that each had earned a prize for having been clever enough to evade him._

_So the oldest brother, who was a combative man, asked for a wand more powerful than any in existence: a wand that must always win duels for its owner, a wand worthy of a wizard who had conquered Death! So Death crossed to an elder tree on the banks of the river, fashioned a wand from a branch that hung there, and gave it to the oldest brother._

Grindelwald leaned forward eagerly. The wand was suspended between two fingers, at the ready.

_Then the second brother, who was an arrogant man, decided that he wanted to humiliate Death still further, and asked for the power to recall others from Death. So Death picked up a stone from the riverbank and gave it to the second brother, and told him that the stone would have the power to bring back the dead._

The stone was in his other hand. If the wand was his sword, the stone was his shield – two weapons that, together, offered certain victory.

_And then Death asked the third and youngest brother what he would like. The youngest brother was the humblest and also the wisest of the brothers, and he did not trust Death. So he asked for something that would enable him to go forth from that place without being followed by Death. And Death, most unwilingly, handed over his own Cloak of Invisibility._

The cloak draped over his shoulder, cutting a strip through him so that the forest showed where his heart ought to be.

… _Death stood aside and allowed the three brothers to continue on their way._

Credence kept reading, but Death did not come.

*

Modesty appeared in the wood and nearly charged face-first into a tree. Tina crumpled, clutching her stomach and retching into the snow. Queenie was the last to arrive. She was briefly enshrouded by darkness; Modesty saw her lips move, though there was no sound, and in the next moment the shadow was gone.

Modesty looked up. Through the bare black-and-white branches, stark as an old photograph, she saw what had probably been a ceiling once, but that was now so insubstantial it was difficult to define as anything at all. Through it, Modesty could see the faint glimmer of someone else’s stars. Snowflakes dusted her cheeks, settling on her hair. She turned from side to side, seeking the right way, and frowned. There was a rusty red truck sitting incongruously in the snow. A tree was growing through the middle of it.

“I wish this was the weirdest thing I’d seen today,” Tina said sadly.

“This way,” Queenie said, with absolute confidence.

They walked between snowbound cars and leafless, lifeless trees. Modesty thought she saw a light in one of the cars and stopped to look through the window, wondering if someone was stuck inside. The pale light winked out. Modesty blinked. She turned around saw the light again, in the distance between the branches. She blinked. It was gone. Something brushed against the back of Modesty’s neck, a brief cold touch, and she gave a small shriek, whacking at the air with her sword.

“We’re not alone,” Queenie said quietly.

“You can hear Newt and Credence?” Tina asked, sounding relieved.

“...yes,” Queenie said slowly. “Not just them.”

A kind of mist was drifting between the trees. In the thin white haze, Modesty glimpsed something moving, figures as insubstantial as the halfway sky.

“What are those _lights_ ,” Tina said, like she didn’t really want to know.

“Those are the candles of the dead,” Queenie breathed. She sounded like she not only wanted to know, she _did_ know, and it was wonderful. “Their voices are so quiet, all I can hear are the whispers…They’re here to see what happens next.”

Modesty drew closer to Tina. “What do they want to happen?”

Queenie tipped her head to one side, curls bouncing. “Huh. Hard to say.” She frowned and said abruptly, “He’s reading. Come on.” She set off at a rapid walk and Modesty had to hurry to keep up. She peered through the trees, hoping that Credence would appear.

It wasn’t Credence they found, though. It was Percival Graves.

*

_In due course, the brothers separated, each for his own destination._

_The first brother travelled on for a week or more, and reaching a distant village, he sought out a fellow wizard with whom he had a quarrel. Naturally, with the Elder Wand as his weapon, he could not fail to win the duel that followed. Leaving his enemy dead upon the floor, the oldest brother proceeded to an inn, where he boasted loudly of the powerful wan he had snatched from Death himself, and of how it made him invincible._

_That very night, another wizard crept upon the oldest brother as he lay, wine-sodden, upon his bed. The thief took the wand and, for good measure, slit the oldest brother’s throat._

_And so Death took the first brother for his own._

“Silvertongue,” Grindelwald said, rolling the word around like a dagger he had not yet quite decided where he would throw, “I’m getting impatient.”

“I’m reading,” Credence said, without inflection. “What else do you want?”

“I want you to put in an effort.” Grindelwald was circling him again. Credence refused to lift his eyes from the book, even when Grindelwald’s hand pressed against the back of his neck with enough force to demand attention. “What I want, Credence, is for you to live up to your promise, because please don’t forget, I do have a spare.”

He gestured towards Newt. Chastity stood over him as if they were not equally prisoners. Perhaps she really thought she was free.

Credence read on.

_Meanwhile, the second brother journeyed to his own home, where he lived alone. Here he took out the stone that had the power to recall the dead, and turned it thrice in his hand. To his amazement and his delight, the figure of the girl he had once hoped to marry before her untimely death appeared at once before him._

_Yet she was silent and cold, separated from him as though by a veil. Though she had returned to the mortal world, she did not truly belong there and suffered. Finally, the second brother, driven mad with hopeless longing, killed himself so as truly to join her._

_And so Death took the second brother for his own._

Still she did not come.

*

Healing potions tasted uniformly foul. Percival came to with the taste of rotten apples in his mouth, a toxic sweetness that made him gag, and thought in his initial disorientation that he was at home above the barracks with Seraphina pouring recuperation solutions into him until he woke up to be yelled at. But Seraphina was not here; he realised that first. Next he registered the empty flask lying in the snow beside him, and the ravens perched above his head. There was something badly wrong with them.

They were dead, he thought, and hungry.

He sat up suddenly and regretted it. Nothing _hurt –_ he just felt an odd, uncomfortable numbness where the hurt ought to be. Looking around for his sword, Percival was not exactly surprised by its absence. He was startled, though, to find a slim silver pocket knife stuck under the hip of his ill-fitting jeans. It was not something he had ever owned; it was of this world in its make, a cheap tacky thing that was nevertheless very sharp. Someone had painstakingly hand-carved a C into the handle. “Credence?” Percival murmured. But Credence had not given him this, not that he could remember. It did not seem like something Credence would own.

He heard voices then and immediately moved to take cover, flicking the blade of the knife free and settling it into his palm, ready to strike.

“…forgot to tell you, honey, sorry. I can hear what people are thinking.”

“You can hear what _dead people_ are thinking?”

“Mm, yeah, that one’s kinda new.”

“Queenie,” Percival said out loud in his relief and narrowly avoided being socked in the face by Tina. Queenie engulfed him in a hug. Percival had never been much given to hugging, but he learned into the warmth of Queenie’s hold, more grateful for the human warmth of it than he would ever want to admit. He felt as if he had been cold for a lifetime.

“ _You’re_ Percival Graves?” said the little girl standing beside Tina. She squinted up at him dubiously. “I thought Grindelwald murdered you and stole your identity.”

Percival stared back at her, nonplussed. “He didn’t get around to it. He was busy gloating.”

“Is it Percival, though?” Tina asked suspiciously. “Modesty’s right, Grindelwald keeps putting on your face like a favourite hat, how are we supposed to tell if it’s actually you?”

“It’s him,” Queenie said, before Percival could get out any of the indignant arguments he had about telling the difference between a knight of Macusa and a fucking murderous shapeshifter. “I’m the mind-reader, remember? I know.”

Modesty did not look sure. “What are you doing here, anyway?” she demanded.

Percival felt unequal to answering the question. There were too many answers and he didn’t like most of them. “I’m here to help Credence,” he said, eventually.

“Oh.” Modesty considered that. “Okay.” She considered some more, then very reluctantly offered him the sword she held. He recognised the make at once – it had come from Seraphina’s armoury. The weight and length were all wrong for him, but it felt so good to have this small piece of home in his hand, as good as a deep breath.

“Thank you,” he said to Modesty, with a short bow. “But you mustn’t be without a weapon.” He offered her the little silver blade. She took it with a wondering look, an echo of his own.

“How did you get my sister’s knife?”

*

“All right, enough.” Grindelwald’s good humour was entirely gone. He prowled in a wide circle, tapping the wand in an angry staccato against his forearm. It was probably too much to hope, Credence thought, that he might accidentally curse it off. “Start again. Read it all again. You’ll read it the right way this time, or I use a different Silvertongue, and do I need to remind you, Credence, Mr Scamander here has no arrangement with me to keep Sir Percival alive? In fact, he wrote him dead in the first place, didn’t he? I wonder what else I could convince him to write. Perhaps he could make Percival have never existed. It would be so interesting to find out if he could.”

Credence’s hands tightened on the book. He looked at Newt, unable to stop himself, and Newt looked back at him over the gag. Whatever happened, it was the two of them who would bring it about. How was that different from writing it down, from reading it out? Maybe there was no difference. Maybe this was being alive and Credence was, as usual, the last to realise it.

He turned back to the beginning of the story. A slip of paper was folded between the pages, like a bookmark, scribbled in two sentences of Newt’s scrawl. Credence swallowed. This time, when he read, he could feel the weight of the words on his tongue.

_Death was called to the wood,_ he read. Grindelwald’s eyes widened as the new words registered. Too late – Credence could read faster. _And Death came, but Grindelwald had no power over her._

There was a sudden terrible quiet. It was, even in the glacial grip of oncoming disaster, a wonderful thing: Credence had spoken, and it had silenced everyone. He had spoken, and it _mattered_.

Grindelwald backhanded him across the face. The iron taste of blood flooded into Credence’s mouth and the book slipped out of his hands, dropping into the snow. Grindelwald hit him again, the blow falling awkwardly because now Credence was braced for it. “You stupid little boy,” Grindelwald hissed. “Was that meant to be brave? Do you feel clever? It didn’t even work. What kind of Silvertongue do you think you are? Do you have any idea what’s coming for you?”

Credence looked up and licked the blood off his lip. “Death,” he said. He had an odd, hysterical impulse to add, _or glory,_ to revel in the fearlessness of imminent doom.

Out of the blue, there was a blood-curdling scream and a small shape hurtled from the trees, crashing into Grindelwald and jamming a knife into his knee. He went down hard. Credence had just enough time to think that no, that couldn’t actually be _Modesty,_ when Grindelwald started to spit out a curse and a sword descended on him, the very sharp tip resting over his heart.

“Shut up,” Percival said savagely.

“You’re okay.” Credence stared at him; Percival looked as he should, strong and righteous and furious at someone, his sword arm steady. Credence’s eyes moved to Modesty, who looked as he had never seen her before, with a bloody knife in her hand and a look of triumph on her face. Percival patted her approvingly on the shoulder as she stood up. “You’re okay,” Credence said again, weakly, swaying on the spot. The relief was enough to leave him stunned and blinking.

Grindelwald made a snarling noise and started on another curse. Percival pressed the tip of the sword harder into his chest, poking through the coat and connecting with skin.

“He really would like to kill you,” Queenie informed Grindelwald, coming up behind Percival. “He’s been thinking about it constantly for the past ten minutes, I wouldn’t push it.” She looked at Credence and smiled. “Hi, sweetie. All of this seems awful. Can we get out of here?”

“You’re okay,” Credence croaked, for the third time.

“Credence,” Percival said, not looking away from Grindelwald. “Did he hit you?”

Modesty pulled out the tiny silver knife and stabbed Grindelwald in the leg again, calling him names that Credence had definitely never taught her. Tina, crowding up past Queenie, made a pleased noise at the trickle of blood oozing around the knife, then hurried over to free Newt. Queenie was whole and Percival was alive and Chastity, Chastity had vanished, and there were so many things Credence needed to say but all he could get out was, “It didn’t work, though.” He had been so sure it would, so sure he had the right words.

“What do you mean?” Modesty scowled up at him. “Why would you _want_ to summon Death? I’ve _rescued_ you! We can get out of here!”

**Not yet.**

She came out of the wood, the girl with the white eyes, trailing darkness in her wake like the cloak she had once given away in another world. Credence did not hear her speak so much as know she had spoken – it was as if he was remembering the words rather than hearing them. She walked the same way, never appearing to move but always growing closer, until she stood before the frozen tableau of them with her monstrous shadow roiling behind her.

**You called me, Silvertongue,** she said. **Here I am.**

*

This is the story.

Three brothers came face to face with Death and thought it was safe to make wishes.

Two boys lost their heads and a girl was in over hers, and they gave up what should not have been lost to chase what should never have been within their reach. And they got it.

A boy with ink under his tongue thought he knew how dangerous it was to hope, and was wrong.

Two girls were lost for so long that to be found might mean being lost forever. It all depends on who does the finding. Do you even know what you’re looking for?

Two men built the pedestals of Conqueror and Hero so that they need never turn around and remember where it all began, but the woman who was Death was behind them like a whisper at the ear, and she would not let them forget. So she became Monster, and Ghost.

This is the story: you opened your mouth and you told the world what you wanted it to be. And maybe you got it.

You can’t go back. It is what it is.

*

Chastity stood on the street outside the library, breathing in dust and stale sunlight. The snow in her hair was melting quickly, leaving damp trails down her face. She was wearing the same dress that she had been wearing the day she disappeared and as she squinted at the familiar faded billboards on the wall across the road, she could think of half a dozen explanations of where she had been. Amnesia was hackneyed, but she could sell it. Drugged and held a basement somewhere, frantic escape from an escaped murderer – wasn’t that what had just happened? She would hardly even need to lie.

How would she explain the loss of her brother? Her little sister? _They were right behind me, officer, I don’t think they made it out._ Chastity looked at the dying grass under her feet. But they had made it out, all of them, for a few days – she had never thought they could do it, had never been willing to even try. Chastity was not brave. She had not survived year after year after fucking year in this town by being brave. Look what a little freedom had done to them: Credence gone and fallen in love with a man from another world, Modesty was stabbing people’s legs, and Chastity…

Hadn’t she done enough? An extra dose of healing potion, a knife – deniable nudges in the right direction. The slight weight in her pocket of an opportunity spotted in the snow, a bit of insurance in this ugly world of hers. Hadn’t she done her best?

She could sell this. She could walk home, knock on the door, tell her story. Henry Shaw would put her in the headlines for weeks, the tragic victim of the godless American criminal underworld, and Mary-Lou would be right there behind her as the stalwart mother who had prayed her daughter to safety.

Chastity was so excruciatingly tired of being anyone’s victim.

She turned her back on the sunny street and walked back down the stairs, into the wood, where her stupid brother was trying to reason with Death.

*

The air was icy, a chill like the inside of a tomb. Credence’s lips were going numb – his whole self felt shocked into numbness and was only jolted back to awareness when Percival hauled him away from the girl with the unearthly shadow who was very likely here to kill them all.

“You didn’t come,” was what came out of Credence’s mouth.

**I was here,** Ariana said. **You did not read,** _**and then she showed herself** _ **. So I did not. But I was here. What do you want from me, Credence Barebone?**

“What _he_ wants!” Grindelwald staggered upright, shoving Modesty violently so that she sprawled into the snow. Percival spared the arm that wasn’t holding Credence to catch her and pull her behind him, dropping his sword to do it. Grindelwald strode his way to the front of the little stunned huddle of them, favouring his bloodied leg but almost rabid with the determination of victory.

“Credence Barebone read you here at my order,” he told Ariana loudly, looking down at her like he could overpower her as easily as he had Modesty. “You answer to me.”

The temperature dropped a few degrees further. **Then ask…if you are holder of the Hallows.**

Grindelwald still wore the Cloak across his shoulder. He drew the wand with exaggerated care and reached into his pocket with the beginnings of triumphant scorn spreading across his face, only to go very, very still.

Ariana smiled, a little girl’s wide toothy grin that her face had never quite grown out of. **Where is the Stone, Grindelwald? Where is your shield?**

Behind Credence, someone cleared her throat delicately. He turned around to see Chastity standing there, holding up a glinting black stone between finger and thumb. “Well,” she said, with a tight little shrug, “didn’t you say I was the one like you? Maybe if you hadn’t been so busy trying to murder my brother, you wouldn’t have dropped it.” She smiled viciously. “Finders, keepers.”

Grindelwald’s incredulity took a fraction of a second to morph into savagery. He swung the wand and the flare of a curse flew from the tip like an arrow – Chastity had time to take half of her last breath and then Ariana, without so much as shifting her weight, was standing in the way, catching the angry poison green spark in her palm without any particular difficulty. She crushed it between her fingers, making a vaguely disgusted face.

“I still hold two of the Hallows!” Grindelwald shouted, knuckles white around the wand. “You can’t touch me, you can’t keep me here – ”

**I did not come from your book,** Ariana said. The shadow behind her split in two, vast wings, too big for the wood, too big for this universe. **I do not come from your words. You have no power over me, Gellert Grindelwald. Let’s see what I can do to you.**

Her wings closed in. They passed through everything in their way, not as if they were insubstantial, but as if the trees and cars and flesh were all just figments of a dream. The feathers swept through Credence and in that moment all the breath went out of him. He was beyond the grip of bones and sinew – he was in the wilderness of a roaring, singing dark – the feathers left him and breath returned, almost unbearable until his lungs quieted enough to function again.

The wings swept in around Grindelwald. The flash of his increasingly frantic curses could be seen between the feathers until he was completely enclosed. **There,** Ariana said tranquilly. **That’s better.** Her wings folded back again, melting into a shadow at her feet, leaving Grindelwald’s body lying within a perfect circle in the snow. His skin was bloodless, his eyes open very, very wide. He, too, had seen the void, and there was no coming back from it now.

“Oh. Oh my,” Queenie said faintly, and leaned very heavily on Newt, who was mouthing wordlessly. Tina pressed in on her other side, unable to look away from the corpse. It was difficult to envisage anything that could be more definitively dead.

Chastity grabbed Credence’s hand and stuffed the stone into it. “You’re going to need this,” she hissed. “Please don’t be stupid.”

**I’ll ask again, Silvertongue,** Ariana said. **What do you want from me?**

“He doesn’t want anything,” Modesty burst out. “Grindelwald forced him, it’s over, can’t you – ”

“I want to put things right,” Credence interrupted.

Percival was shaking his head furiously. “Credence, you are not doing this, just _stop talking_.”

Credence had never wanted to stop talking more in his life. Percival’s hand was warm and fierce on his arm, he was holding onto him and it felt so good to be held, but Credence had this one chance and he was going to take it. “I want,” Credence said steadily, choosing every word with immense care, “for everyone who was read out of their world to be able to go home.”

“Credence,” Percival growled at the same time as Modesty shrieked it. Chastity threw up her hands, stepped back, gritted out, “So stupid.”

**Ah,** Ariana said. **I thought it might be like that. But you only have one Hallow, and no words to bind me, so why should I give you anything?**

“What do you want from me?” Credence asked, aware it was indeed a very stupid question. “You can have it, whatever you want, just help me make this right.”

**All right,** Ariana said simply.

Percival caught Credence’s body as it crumpled.

*

Credence was sitting in the last pew, right at the back of the church, where he had never been allowed to sit in his life. He supposed this was not his life any more.

It was the middle of winter but he had outgrown last year’s coat and Mary-Lou had not allowed him a new one yet, annoyed at the expense, so he sat in the cold with his hands under his legs and his shoulders hunched in, trying to conserve body heat. He could see Chastity and Modesty sitting up the front in their usual places and there, in front of them all, was his mother, walking up and down in a state of fervent transendancy, telling her congregation of the Rapture and of God’s heavenly armies while Credence lost feeling in his toes.

“You have always been cold,” said the girl beside him on the pew.

Credence didn’t answer. He thought about Purgatory, about empty places with nothing for it but regret.

“I am Death,” Ariana said, “not Punishment. The universe is vast and dark, and yes, it is cold, and in the end the only entity you truly answer to its yourself. You brought me here. This is the story you chose to tell me. Why?”

“I used to think about running away,” Credence said. He watched Mary-Lou raise her hands to the heavens, where she was so sure she would be welcomed. Was she sure? Was she just desperate to make meaning of darkness and cold? “But there was no one who wanted me. So I thought about just not being here any more.”

“Many call me that way,” Death told him. “I would have come for you.”

“I wanted you to.” Credence had never told anyone before. “But. Modesty needed me. I didn’t want…she might. Have seen.” He was getting disjointed, he could hear his own exhaustion. “It was wrong, I know that.”

“Death is not wrong,” Ariana said. “It is an end. It is the final chapter. Yours would have been a short, sad story and that could not ever be changed. You would not then ever have found love, or vengeance, or any of the true good things of this world. There are many people’s stories that would never have had your name written into them, and been lesser for it.”

Credence breathed deep and was on a train speeding through a nightbound city, lighted windows flashing past in an indecipherable code of unknown lives. Ariana was older now, his age; she was dressed in layers of grey wool, swathed in a scarf and some kind of black coat that shifted into something closer to a robe when Credence looked at her from the corner of his eye.

“Am I a story?” he asked.

“You exist, so yes. I am also a story,” Death said. “I am the tale told in every world.” She considered him. “What made you think that Grindelwald’s book would not be enough to summon me? How could you know that?”

“I hoped,” Credence admitted. “I thought – it said ‘he’. But you’re not. Maybe you were, once, or maybe they thought you were when they told the story, but that was before Ariana.” He hesitated. “Can you let her go now?”

She looked out the window. Dawn spread across the skyline, banishing the city; cornfields unrolled across the face of the world, endlessly gold and green. “What’s done is done,” she said simply. “I am what I am now, until story’s end.”

“Will it end?” Credence wondered. “Even for you?”

“All things end.”

They were in the wood again, but the trees were verdant with summer, the air warm and grafrant from a brief rain shower. Birds sang. Credence plucked a leaf, rubbed it slowly between his fingers. It stained them green.

“Is this a real place?” he asked.

“As real as you.”

“Am I real?”

“As real as starlight. As real as the wind.” Ariana smiled at him; she was a woman old enough to be his mother, only his mother never had so much calm in her eyes. “As real as breath,” she said, then, “You’re not cold any more.”

Her eyes fell on something behind him and Credence turned to look. Leaning up against a nearby tree, in shirtsleeves with his armour and swordbelt discarded in the grass, was his knight. Percival was drowsing, restful as Credence had never seen him. His eyes cracked open as he was watched and he smiled sleepily.

“Oh,” he said. “There you are. Where have you been?”

Credence’s breath caught. He faltered out some answer that was neither sense nor truth, and Percival’s smile grew as if this confusion was known and understood, something to amuse instead of annoy. His eyes drifted shut again. “Wake me when it’s time, won’t you?” he murmured, and slept.

“You have known him so short a time,” Ariana remarked. There were traces of grey at her temples, crow’s feet around her eyes. “Yet he is precious to you.”

“Yes,” Credence breathed.

“You are also precious to him,” she said. “Though you doubt it.”

“That’s all I do,” Credence said dully. “I’m supposed to be the believer, but I don’t know how to believe in anything.”

“There is no shame in desiring proof,” Ariana observed. “But what would be proof enough?”

“He’ll get bored. I don’t know how to make him want me, I don’t know anything.” Credence kicked at the grass and it gave beneath him, showing darkness, a void where the earth should be. “It’s only going to fall apart.”

“All things end,” Ariana said again.

“I don’t know how to be happy,” Credence said. “I don’t _know_.” He looked up. “Did you?”

“I tore apart worlds for vengeance.” Ariana shrugged. “It helped a little.”

“I don’t want to tear worlds apart.”

“You already have. You wished for everyone who was read out of their world to be able to go home – what did you think you were asking for? Not that they _would_ go home. That they could. That means a choice, Credence. That means a door.”

Credence stared, horrified. “What does that mean?”

“I am Death,” Ariana said irritably, “not Prophecy. It’s done now. You’ll have to wait and see.”

“You did it! If there’s a door, you made it! You have to know.”

“It is what it is.” The forest was fading around them, bookshelves rising where the trees had stood. “You made a choice and now reality is different – it happens a thousand times a day. How can you know this will end being more important than the train you took or the book you stole? You can’t. You can only live.”

Credence was in the library, at the back of the stacks, standing at the lectern with the atlas under his hands. The book was shut. When he slipped his thumb under the cover, it resisted, a weight that would take both hands to lift.

“What’s inside?” he asked.

“That depends on where you plan to go.” Ariana shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”

“Thank you,” Credence said. “For staying with me. I – I’m glad I didn’t do this alone.”

“I mostly loathe surprises,” Ariana said. “But…I am glad to have met you, Credence. I hope I do not see you again too soon.”

Credence could smell the old paper, the dust and ink. He opened the book and began to read.

*

This is the story: it happened once upon a time, it happened in a land far away, it happened long, long ago. It _happened_.

*

The snow was beginning to melt. The trees were almost gone, dark streaks on the air, though the concrete where they had been rooted was cracked and the cars they had grown through were riddled with holes where the branches had been. The remnants would be here as long as this place was.

Percival sat staring dully at the ceiling as it gradually solidified, pipes blotting out the stars. Credence was a dead weight against his chest, cradled there like a broken doll. Queenie had one hand pressed against his forehead, her eyes scrunched shut as she listened intently for signs of life – she kept saying, “it isn’t the same, though, it _isn’t_ ,” and he let her hope, because why the hell not? It was better than listening to Modesty sob in Tina’s arms, or looking at Newt’s hollow, guilt-stricken face, or looking at Chastity’s rigid back as she sat a little way from the rest of them. It was better than looking at the mirror, which showed a familiar path and in the distance, the towers of Macusa.

They were all of them waiting – for what? A sign? A burst of conviction that it was time to let go, walk away, pick up the pieces of what was left? Percival pressed his face into Credence’s damp hair. When the warmth of his body was gone, it would be time.

Queenie whispered, “There you are,” and as Percival lifted his head, bewildered, Credence coughed and shifted in his arms.

“You FUCKER,” Modesty screamed, jumping on him. “I hate you!”

Credence blinked up at the circle of pale, stunned faces looking down at him. Then he smiled, teeth still stained with blood but radiant nonetheless.

“She wanted a story,” he said. “That’s all she wanted. Just the story.”

*

Within an hour, summer returned to the parking lot, and Modesty was more than ready to leave.

There had been some discussion over what to do with Grindelwald’s corpse. The Resurrection Stone and the Elder Wand had both been shattered when he died, which at least meant there was no argument about them – the only Hallow left intact was the Cloak, puddled on the ground beside the corpse. The very, very dead corpse. Credence and Tina were all for leaving it where it was, and Chastity agreed with them. Nobody knew quite what to say to her, given that she had betrayed them all but had then gone on to betray Grindelwald as well, which was a kind of confusing betrayal circle. Modesty couldn’t decide whether to glare at her or not. It turned into a suspicious squint, which probably wasn’t very intimidating.

In the end, Percival got his way and tested the mirror doorway by pushing the corpse through it. They all watched it rolled limply onto the grass on the other side. “Seraphina will be relieved,” Percival said, wiping his hands on the sides of his pants. “It’s over.”

Albus would be sad, Modesty thought. But perhaps relieved too, underneath it.

She looked around at the parking lot, at the cars and the concrete. Her school backpack was slung over her shoulder. She was so, so ready to go.

“I’m coming with you,” she announced.

Percival blinked at her. “You…are?”

“Modesty,” Credence began.

“I’m going to be a knight,” Modesty told him. She couldn’t quite meet his eye. “I’m not coming back to this town, I don’t want to live in this world, I want to be over there. Macusa has magic, Credence, it’s beautiful, there are forests, there’s a castle. That’s where I want to live. There’s a doorway now! I can come back and see you! You can…”

She trailed off. Percival was looking at Credence and Credence was looking back and Modesty could tell that something was happening, some communication was being made that she did not understand. Percival was beginning to smile.

“We have scholars too, you know, not just knights,” he said. “There are even librarians.”

“Can you trust me with a library?” But Credence was beginning to smile too.

“I trust you,” Percival said. It sounded like a promise.

“What are you talking about?” Modesty demanded. “Credence?”

“Forests sound nice.” Credence offered her his hand, like he had when she was very small and her big brother was always there to help her back onto her feet. “Do you mind if I come too?”

Modesty used to dream about getting out of this town, and her dreams had always been dramatic – sudden deaths, natural disasters, the CIA. She supposed defeating an evil wizard and sweet-talking Death were circumstances bizarre enough to be one of those dreams, but it didn’t feel like she had thought it would. She didn’t need to knock down her mother’s door to show how strong she was, or to stride through the streets of town for all the neighbours to stare. She just wanted to leave, and take everything she cared about with her.

She hadn’t realised that maybe Credence had those dreams too.

“You’re coming?” she said, almost unable to believe it. “We’re never going back?”

Credence looked around too. They both knew this building so well, had spent most of the summer hiding out here. “We’re never coming back,” he agreed. That sounded like a promise too.

“Well, I guess we’ll be the ones visiting,” Queenie said, coming over to give him a hug. She hugged Percival too, and shook hands with Modesty. “I’m sticking around in this world for a while. That bakery across the road from Newt’s place has been advertising in the window, looks like they could use a helping hand.” She kissed Credence on the cheek. “Hey, I might learn to drive.”

“I’m staying too,” Tina said. “I mean, we are taking that mirror. We are keeping that mirror very, very safe, believe me, I want my options open, but…” She looked over her shoulder at Newt, who was standing back a bit with his hands in his pockets. One of those pockets looked suspiciously oblong, as if there might be a book stuffed in there. “If there are other Silvertongues around, they could probably use some help. Me and Newt got talking about it, and…we’re going to start looking.”

“You’re not going home?” Credence asked, puzzled. “I thought – ”

Tina smiled at him, then at Modesty. “What’s home? I figure it’s just where you really want to be. This…this is good. This is good for now.”

“Chastity? What about you?” Credence began, turning around, but Chastity was not there, and neither was the Cloak. “Chastity?” Credence said, doubtfully, to empty air.

“I think she needs some time,” Queenie said gently. “She knows where to find you.”

“Is she going to?” Modesty asked. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to the answer to be.

“We’ll have to wait and see,” Credence said quietly. “She’s got the choice, hasn’t she?” He tugged on Modesty’s hand. His other hand was wrapped around Percival’s, fingers laced together, holding on tight. “Come on. Show me the castle.”

“You know, I actually live there,” Percival pointed out. “I _may_ know it better than she does.”

Realisation dawned. This was _Percival Graves_. “Wait, you’re Queen Seraphina’s champion. You can give me another sword! You can train me to be a knight!”

They stepped through the mirror together, the three of them, Percival and Modesty already arguing, Percival already losing, and Credence smiling between them, lifting his face to the endless skies of Macusa.

*

This is the story: happily ever after, as long they lived. Do you believe in ever after?

Maybe not. All things end. The girl gives up her Cloak in due time to its true owner and greets her by name after adventures unnumbered and enough near misses to earn a weary roll of blank white eyes. The two knights battled side by side for long years, the scars on their bodies becoming lovingly mocking anecdotes to each other’s prowess – but no one can fight forever, and Ariana came for them too, in the end. The boy’s bones are buried in earth so very far from the world where he was born, and eventually the graveyard gives way to the forest. Trees grow above his cracked gravestone and the story of him still passes down through the generations, is written down time and again, fades and transforms and turns a little feral with the retellings. Yes, don’t put your trust in ‘ever after’.

But believe in ‘they lived’.

Believe in happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it's finally over! That was - so much longer than I expected it to be. Thank you to everyone who read and commented and cared about this story, I hope you've enjoyed this last chapter!


End file.
